Carrie Mae Weems

Here Weems’s text positions Africa as the site of the Garden of Eden (jannah), with photographs of the men and women’s entrances of Mali’s Great Mosque of Djenné emphasizing a gendered reading of Afro-Islamic architecture. Originally built in the 1200s from bricks made of clay collected from nearby rivers, the mosque brings together local and foreign aesthetics. Historically frequented by trans-Saharan merchants, the mosque is decorated with West African icons, such as ostrich eggs and phallic-shaped mounds symbolizing fertility and prosperity. Although some scholarly interpretations call for strict gender segregation in mosques, Djenné presents a more nuanced, integrated approach to religious life. Muslim men, women, and children still gather for the building’s annual re-plastering.

Since the late 1970s, Carrie Mae Weems has presented photographs with text in order to expose stereotypes about race, gender, and class. After producing a body of work in 1992 about the legacy of African culture among the Gullah-speaking people of Georgia and South Carolina, Weems traveled to Africa to learn more about her ancestral land, people, and art.

The photographs in this piece were taken during that African trip and depict the architecture of Djenne, Mali, one of the most beautiful and oldest cities in western Africa. Weems was astounded by the buildings, which she describes as having "male and female space... clearly presented in the structure of the buildings." Seeing these structures inspired Weems's musings on the creation of the first man and woman. She described her thinking as follows:

Myths are stories about the historical past that are believed to be true that tell us how the present world came to be. And as you know, human life began in Africa, so in this installation I play with these ideas. But fortunately, I'm an artist, not an ethnographer, so I blend my own myth with those of other cultures. Every culture has a creation myth and almost all of them begin with the battle between the first woman and man. I'm just playing it up in a different light.

I concentrated on the look and feel of the place. What was deep was the gender specificity of the architecture, particularly in Djenne, Mali... The idea that space is "gendered "--you know, male and female space--knocked me out. It was so clearly presented in the structure of the buildings--beautiful.

Carrie Mae Weems's academic training in both the fine arts and folklore is evident in her work. A Place for Him, A Place for Her comes from a series of photographs with text (a creation myth) inspired by the artist's first trip to West Africa in the early 1990s.