LA FÉE DE BOUILLANTE | WENDIE ZAHIBO

Wendie Zahibo, Franco-Guadeloupean, originally from Ivory Coast and the Central African Republic, completed her studies in the United States and France, where she now resides. A multidisciplinary artist, for several years she has been developing the masonn project—a series of photographic collages that combine archival research and personal memory, focusing on the African diaspora in four countries: Guadeloupe, Côte d’Ivoire, Brazil, and the United States.
Zahibo refers to these works as “vernacular architectures”, using the term architecture in the sense of construction—or more precisely, in this case, reconstruction—not of a home, a neighborhood, or a city, but of a community. The works take the form of photographic collages, precisely these “vernacular architectures”—buildings that Zahibo conceives as open structures in a continuous process of expansion and development.
The artist employs references to traditions and symbolic cultural legacies to explore how memory and the transmission of cultural heritage remain today a fundamental and foundational element in the process of identity construction.
Zahibo positions the portrayed figures, duplicates or repeats them—in similar or even identical poses, seen from the front or back—or, as in the case of the “girls with wings” walking in opposite directions, all identical in face and clothing, yet divergent in their gestures.
Photography enables her to transcend the boundary between the imaginary and the real, moving toward a kind of mystical realism that blends distinctive elements—legacies of a generation—with personal narratives.
Thanks to the fortunate alchemy of these technical and theoretical elements, Zahibo’s images manage to keep an immaterial archive alive and vibrant, one that regenerates dynamically, creating space for encounter, reflection, and the desire to reconnect with one’s community.

Wendie Zahibo
La fée de Bouillante,
Photography / digital collage
Courtesy the artist

09/04/25