Maïmouna Guerresi

Mariane Ibrahim presents a guided tour ofA'ishah: The Paths of the Soul by Maïmouna Guerresi.

At the heart of A’ishah: The Paths of the Soul lies a profound meditation on the symbolic  power of sacred feminine icons across cultures and continents. By linking the Black Madonnas  of Europe—venerated figures often obscured by colonial narratives—with Mexico’s Virgen de  Guadalupe, Guerresi opens a space of dialogue between African, Islamic, and Latin American  spiritual traditions. Both the Black Madonna and the Guadalupana are embodiments of maternal  protection, resistance, and divine presence—figures who have spoken to the marginalized  and the oppressed across centuries. Through these connections, Guerresi invites viewers to  reflect on how histories of devotion, migration, and memory are inscribed in the sacred image.

The exhibition is built around the fictional narrative of A’ishah, co-written by Guerresi and  cultural researcher Theophilus Imani. The story follows a young woman born in Italy to a  Moroccan family who dreams of Saint Bakhita, a Sudanese Catholic religious sister who joined  a religious order after achieving freedom from slavery. In the dream, the saint urges A’ishah to  travel across Italy in search of sacred places where Black Madonnas are venerated, with the  goal of returning these icons to Africa.

A’ishah’s journey unfolds across geographies. Along the way, she meets artists, mystics, and  guardians of forgotten stories—revealing the spiritual legacies of women long relegated to  the margins. These encounters become moments of personal awakening and reflection on  the colonial legacies that continue to shape the production of history and art. Like A’ishah’s  journey, the exhibition proposes a non-linear experience of time, unfolding in a surreal and  contemplative space. Works from earlier periods coexist fluidly with new projects, such as La  Création du Monde (2023) and the monumental figures Iside (2025), Ipazia (2024), and Black  Madonna with Candles (2025)—all unveiled for the first time in this exhibition.

The polyptych The Girls in Their Private Garden (2016) draws from the histories of the Griyah— Muslim women, often of African origin, who were taken as war captives into Arab harems.  Many of these women rose to prominence as scholars, queens, and spiritual guides. Guerresi  renders them allegorically, in states of transition and empowerment, reclaiming their place in  a history long written by patriarchal forces.

At the center of this room stands Annunciation (2025), a sculpture composed of two feet made  of colored resin, veiled in blue fabric reminiscent of the mantle of the Virgin of Guadalupe.  Referencing one of Mexico’s most revered spiritual figures—believed to have appeared to the  Indigenous peasant Juan Diego in 1531—this gesture grounds the installation in local devotion.  The Virgin of Guadalupe, long a symbol of protection and cultural resilience, becomes here  a transcontinental echo of the divine feminine, reinforcing the exhibition’s resonance with its  Mexican context.

The three Madonnas—Isis, Hypatia, and the Black Madonna—continue a series Guerresi began  in 2000, dedicated to mystical female figures from Muslim Africa. Towering and ancestral, they  are cloaked in flowing robes with torsos rendered as hollow voids—metaphors for energetic  and spiritual potential.

The video La Création du Monde is based on a Dogon creation myth, transcribed in French by  anthropologist Marcel Griaule and adapted in the book Kuma by Makhily Gassama. Guerresi  commissioned a translation of the text into Wolof—a traditional Senegalese language—to  writer Pap Abdoulaye Khouma. Narrated by curator and writer N’Goné Fall, the recitation  brings rhythmic cadence and sonic texture to the work. The piece pays homage to the legacy  of Cheikh Anta Diop, whose research established deep cultural and linguistic ties between  Wolof and ancient Egyptian. Diop argued that the Egyptian language, rooted in Black Africa,  served as a foundation for Mediterranean civilizations, influencing Greek and Roman thought.  By invoking these suppressed connections, Guerresi reclaims a buried intellectual heritage  and reactivates it through spiritual and visual storytelling.

The exhibition culminates with four pieces from Unknown Maps (2017–2018), a series of hand embroidered textile works that function as symbolic cartographies. They celebrate the paths  carved by Sufi poetesses and mystics—primarily African Muslim women—whose spiritual  influence transcended geography and time. Drawing from oral traditions and literary sources,  the series resists Western historical linearity in favor of a cyclical, multivocal vision, where  distant voices speak in unison.

The works on view span textile installations, sculpture, video, and photography—Guerresi’s  most recognized medium. Each piece marks a distinct moment in her ongoing exploration  of spirituality, where mysticism and feminism coexist to reveal a rich tapestry of connections  between the material and the metaphysical.

A’ishah: The Paths of the Soul offers a rare convergence of symbols and geographies, bridging  continents and belief systems to create a space for memory, resistance, and renewal. This  exhibition invites the audience to reflect on the universal power of spiritual womanhood,  to reclaim erased histories, and to imagine futures shaped by empathy, connection, and  transformation.

–Mariane Ibrahim