Homo Faber 2026 — what it means to be selected

In September 2026, I will present Ancestor at Homo Faber — the biennial celebration of exceptional craftsmanship organized by the Michelangelo Foundation at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice.

I want to explain what this means. Not for my career. For the work.

What Homo Faber is

Homo Faber is not an art fair. It is not a design week. It is something rarer — a dedicated space for the encounter between exceptional making and serious attention.

The Fondazione Giorgio Cini occupies a former Benedictine monastery on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. It is one of the most beautiful spaces in Venice. Walking through it, you understand immediately that the objects displayed there are expected to hold their own against centuries of accumulated seriousness.

I find this clarifying.

Why Ancestor

Ancestor is one of the pieces I am most attached to. It is also one of the most difficult to explain.

It is a cabinet — but the word "cabinet" barely captures what it does. It stands. It watches. It has a presence that is not entirely comfortable, that asks something of the person who stands in front of it.

The forms reference the ancestral figures of the Toussian people — my people, from the southwest of Burkina Faso. Not as illustration. As structural logic. The proportions, the verticality, the sense of accumulated time — these come from a visual tradition that is thousands of years old.

Presenting this piece in Venice, in September 2026, feels like a necessary confrontation. Between a tradition that has never needed validation and a context that does the validating.

I am curious to see what happens.