No Words, by Isa Toledo at Galeria Miguel Nabinho

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DATE

20 Feb 2026

AUTHOR

Tomás Saraiva

No Words, by Isa Toledo at Galeria Miguel Nabinho

AUTHOR

Tomás Saraiva

Isa Toledo presents her third solo exhibition at Galeria Miguel Nabinho, in a revisiting of her authorial lineage that seeks the fragility of our position in the triad with image and language.

My initial intention for this text was, perhaps somewhat obviously, to avoid using words, like someone writing about Fight Club, and to be merely a nothingness that might give you a conceptual tickle… Doing so, however, would not do justice to what the exhibition is about and which will lead us, I believe, to accept that letters, words, phrases, the commas that breathe them, texts and the periods that end them are, despite everything, inescapable. All these vibrations are important.

The exhibition, if we are not truly familiar with Isa Toledo's work, is surprising. Of the three exhibitions the artist has presented at Galeria Miguel Nabinho, this is the only one that doesn't have a single word integrated into the pieces. All of them, roughly the same size, are made from fabrics the artist had at home, like someone who keeps things and trinkets that might come in handy someday. The compositions/images presented arise, some of them, from photographs, and each one ends up engaging with distinct things, from care and expressions of love to humor, memory, and playfulness.

This pleasant strangeness reminded me of a time I was talking to a friend about language—the charm of the linguistic paradox! He asserted, with conviction, that I wasn't thinking about what I was saying. I confess I feared I wasn't saying anything good, but in fact, he was right! I wasn't really thinking about what I was saying. The words flowed from my mouth already remotely controlled by something we might call the unconscious. That's when I was introduced to Kekulé's¹ Problem, a text written by Cormac McCarthy that begins with the story of August Kekulé and his search for the chemical formula of benzene. Unable to conceive it, he ended up falling asleep in front of the fireplace and, in a dream, his eureka moment vividly appeared: the image of an Ouroboros and, from there, the molecule of what is now our favorite hydrocarbon being a ring. McCarthy goes on in a beautiful reverie about this relationship between language, image, and the unconscious, given that he is simply not used to giving verbal instructions and doesn't like doing so². McCarthy also points out how language spread rapidly, carrying the World before it, this descriptive object and ultimate exponent of the law of the utility of language.

No Words attempts to return to the times before writing, to distance itself from this relatively recent linguistic necessity in human history, which Isa Toledo believes to be a prison, as can be read in the exhibition's leaflet—one of the most stimulating I've seen in the gallery: "literacy is a prison. from the moment you learn to read, you can't simply stop. if you see words, you will read them. I hate that. oppressive³.

In fact, one of the first things I did when I saw the pieces was to ask about the titles, which are only available on the website or in the catalog. Yes, despite the entire narrative of non-words, the works are accompanied by titles that the artist simply didn't want to question because of the exhibition's name… But, essentially, all these verbal crutches want to stay far away. What processes of encoding and decoding, of readings, alphabets, and meanings? Ultimately, the intention is not to condition the perception of those who look at these images, without any kind of identification, description, or even a pun, to truly initiate some kind of unlearning process, and that is what the exhibition becomes. Furthermore, the exhibition was forced to find a level above this exercise, in a tone of supra-conceptualization, due to the storms that ravaged the country. Because of the heavy rains, the space of Galeria Miguel Nabinho couldn't withstand some leaks, which, for safety reasons, forced the removal of the works from the wall and the closure for a few days, thus losing exhibition time. However, I must confess that I feel this misfortune reinforced the entire exercise and the whole idea of Isa Toledo. Initially without words and, in a certain irony, without even an image…

It is true that language can be relatively limiting and that the exercise of distancing ourselves can be momentarily provocative. Previously, if Isa Toledo's works comforted us in some way and supported us through the juxtaposition of the word and the material in which it resides, these pieces leave the meaning to the interpretation of each individual and attempt to liberate it. As if we were now the little bird that has gained independence to leave the nest and is preparing to fly, in the same vulnerability with which the artist presents herself in this exhibition.

The exhibition No Words, by Isa Toledo, is on display until March 14th at the Miguel Nabinho Gallery.

1 Cormac McCarthy, The Kekulé Problem: Where did language come from?, Nautilus Magazine (2017).

2 Ibid.

3 From the exhibition text, taken from an Instagram meme.

BIOGRAPHY

Tomás Saraiva (b. 2002) has a degree in Art and Heritage Sciences from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon and is studying for a master's degree in Curatorial Studies at the College of Arts of the University of Coimbra. Between painting and curating, he combines the artistic thinking he has been developing with his curatorial values, either solo or as a group. She has held and participated in several exhibitions at national and international level.

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