The article provides the contextualization of Catarina Branco’s work through a brief introduction to the history of the art of papercutting in the Azores, as the means of expression used by the artist and its intrinsic connection with the memories of the place and the experiences of women who are part of the local material culture. Then, taking Catarina Branco’s exhibitions Alminhas, 2013 (Figures 3–5), and Fez-se Luz (Light Was Made), 2012 (Figures 6–11), as a start- ing point, the article analyses the way in which craft techniques are interwoven through memory with the senses of places, and the way in which this memory, linked to the land and the gesture of making, fuels the critical questioning of the notion of cultural purity and the disembodied vision of the western male gaze.