It is with great pleasure that we announce Woman in The __________ , the second solo show by Ana Rebordão at the gallery.

OPENING
October 15th| 5 – 8 PM
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DURATION
15.10 – 28.11.2025

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There is a performative dimension to what we have learned to recognize as womanhood — a succession of gestures, beha- viors, images, and expectations that, through repetition, take on the appearance of a natural condition. Gender, however, does not precede the practices through which it manifests; rather, it is constituted through their repeated enactment. It is also within this repetition that the possibility of deviation, interruption, or failure resides, opening up space to question the stability of the conventions that organize women‘s social experience. A gap emerges between what is expected of a body and what that body actually does—a space where the absurd can acquire a distinct critical potency.

The home stands out as a primary site of this construction. Historically associated with women, the organization of daily life, and often-invisible labor, domesticity encompasses not only a material division of tasks but also a repertoire of images, movements, and obligations. Cooking, cleaning, caregiving, or simply occupying a specific space are actions shaped by con- ventions that dictate modes of presence and recognition. In her second solo exhibition at NO·NO Gallery—following *Dentro* (2023) — Ana Rebordão continues her investigation into socially assigned roles for women and the mechanisms involved in their representation. The shift from the studio to the domestic sphere, driven by circumstances in the artist‘s life, transforms a biographical contingency into an opportunity for artistic experimentation. In *Woman in the__________*, the home ceases to be merely the site of production and becomes the very subject matter of the research.

The photographic image, suspended in the exhibition space and accompanied by a text on the reverse, formally approa- ches the nature of an icon, invoking a visual tradition of veneration and representation that finds one of its recurring motifs in the figure of the woman—and, specifically, in motherhood. The video sequence, presented on the lower floor, is organized as a succession of episodes, constructing a fragmented temporality in which each situation seems to herald a potential develop- ment that remains suspended. Photography, video, and performance intersect without the technical specificity or disciplinary autonomy of each medium serving as the investigation‘s ultimate aim. Action permeates these various modes of presentation, yet the work is neither exhausted by the performative event nor reduced to its documentation.

Flight, oblivion, fire, and explosion emerge as possibilities for rupture, without necessarily coming to pass. Fire simulta- neously evokes destruction and desire, bringing the threat of latent sexuality into a universe governed by the conventions of domesticity. The creation of a profile on a dating app extends this inquiry into the realm of contemporary technologies that mediate desire. Self-presentation becomes a new performative act, shaped by the categories, procedures, and expectations of recognition that structure the platform. In this context, love appears sexualized and transformed into one option among many—presented as a matter of individual choice, even though that choice is often shaped by scarcity and a lack of genuine alternatives.

Hovering between irony and unease, Ana Rebordão explores the contradictions of an experience in which the possibility of acting does not necessarily imply the possibility of choosing. Here, the absurd does not amount to a suspension of reality, but rather to a procedure that makes its mechanisms of normalization perceptible. The blank space in the exhibition’s title extends this indeterminacy, refusing to pin the woman down to a definitive place while simultaneously highlighting the persistence of the roles that continue to be assigned to her.

ANA CRISTINA CACHOLA
October, 2026

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ANA REBORDÃO
Mulher Na __________
15.10 – 28.11.2026
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Exhibition Text : Ana Cristina Cachola
Photography : Bruno Lopes