Amina Agueznay to Represent Morocco at First Venice Pavilion

Marrakesh-based artist Amina Agueznay will bring a ‘layered exploration of Moroccan heritage, memory, and transformation’ to the country’s first pavilion at the Venice Biennale, following the cancellation of the country’s first planned pavilion in 2024.

The architect-turned-artist, whose practice is rooted in local landscapes and partnerships with women artisans, will represent Morocco at Venice from 9 May to 22 November 2026 with a presentation curated by Meriem Berrada, artistic director at MACAAL museum in Marrakesh.

Morocco’s planned 2024 pavilion was abruptly cancelled after the Ministry of Culture dropped the original team just months before the Biennial’s opening without justification.

Agueznay’s proposal Asatta—meaning non-attached in Pali, the ancient Indian used in Buddhist scripture—was selected for its resonance with the Biennial’s theme, In Minor Keys, a call for a tired world to heal by the late curator Koyo Kouoh.

Agueznay, the daughter of Malika Agueznay, a leading Moroccan modernist artist and member of Casablanca Art School, practised architecture in the U.S. before returning to Morocco in 1997 to ‘explore scale in a meaningful way’, as she told The Guardian in 2024.

Her 2024 tapestry Portal 1 saw palm husk thread woven into decorative patterns found on Moroccan carpets and the doors of fortified villages in the Maghreb, modelled after a first drawing by Agueznay.

‘Weaving is interesting because it’s about going back to the line,’ Agueznay told The Guardian. ‘The line is important for me because of my practice as an architect—I always go back to my architectural primary elements of form: lines, planes and volumes.’

As one of 29 submissions from a nationwide open call, Agueznay’s proposal was selected by a committee nominated by the Ministry of Culture and chaired by Mehdi Qotbi, president of National Foundation of Museums. —[O]

Main image: Amina Agueznay, Waha (2024). Exhibition view: Field Work, Loft Art Gallery, Marrakesh (25 October 2024–10 February 2025). Courtesy the artist and Loft Art Gallery.