Ana Silva. Eau

Opening on February 25, 2026, GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo presents Eau, the first solo exhibition in an Italian institution by Angolan–Portuguese artist Ana Silva (Calulo, 1979).

The project unfolds within a framework that brings into dialogue two distinct yet interconnected moments in the museum’s programming, under the direction of Lorenzo Giusti: Thinking Like a Mountain, the biennial program developed between 2024 and 2025, which opened a shared space for reflection on sustainability and the collective dimension of artistic experience; and Pedagogy of Hope, which takes up this legacy and, in 2026, shifts the focus towards the educational dimension and the role of art as a practice of knowledge, relation, and transformation.

Inspired by the thinking of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, who conceives education as a practice of freedom, the program is the result of an ongoing co-design process between Sara Tonelli and Rachele Bellini from the Education Department and the curatorial team, comprising Sara Fumagalli, Valentina Gervasoni, and Irene Guandalini.

Conceived for GAMeC’s Spazio Zero, Ana Silva’s exhibition is developed in collaboration with a network of local female embroiderers, invited by the artist to intervene on her textile works, addressing one of the most urgent crises of our time: access to water.

In the production of her works, Silva initially entrusts the subjects she conceives and designs to Angolan male embroiderers—for in Angola, only men are permitted to use sewing machines—before completing the works herself, adding decorations, glitter, and sequins by hand. Through the language of embroidery—traditionally associated with care, memory, and resistance—the artist denounces water scarcity, and reveals a reality in which water is considered a privilege rather than a right.

Ana Silva’s artistic practice unfolds at the intersection of memory, materiality, and sociocultural critique, engaging with the effects of globalization, consumption, and transcontinental flows. Her work takes shape through the recovery of textiles, practices, and forms of female knowledge long relegated to the private sphere, now adopted as part of the contemporary artistic language.... read the rest of the article»