Current Residents Luísa Leão
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photo by André Matos
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photo by Maryliis Teinfeldt-Grins
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photo by Nuno Alex
Luísa Leão (b. Brasília, 1998) lives in the Algarve, where she has been an artist-in-residence at GamaRama Gallery since 2024. She holds a PhD in Arts and a master’s in Fashion Design from the University of Beira Interior, alongside academic experience in Italy and Brazil. Her practice features abstract, organic material-textile paintings and sculptures. Using wool fibre in a processual, vertical manner and incorporating heirloom textiles, Luísa investigates the poetics of the thread. She approaches the medium as a minimal, universal, and ancestral unit, addressing themes of temporality and the feminine.
During my residency, I will develop a textile installation composed of hand-felted wool fragments stitched together with thread that I spin manually throughout the residency. The spinning process — carried out with a small handheld spindle — will take place while walking across the island, attending community gatherings and participating in HIAP activities. The thread will accumulate as a material record of lived time and shared conversations.
Throughout the residency, I will embroider words and short phrases collected during exchanges with residents, workers and visitors, reflecting shared concerns and hopes regarding life in edge spaces.
Luísa Leão’s residency at HIAP is part of ARES – Arts on the Edge Spaces. Partners of the project are WASP – Working Art Space & Production in Romania, SCIAENA in Portugal, and HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme in Finland.
ARES – Arts on the Edge Spaces is funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and Ministry of Education and Culture. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.