Maison Gacha’s new exhibition offers an (re)discovery of the inspired art of Barbara Asei Dantoni. From childhood, Barbara Asei Dantoni showed an artistic calling encouraged by her parents, who enrolled her at the École des Beaux-Arts in Pau. Later trained in industrial design, she soon returned to visual arts, drawn by a deeper necessity.
Textile quickly became the connective thread of her work. The daughter of a seamstress, she has always maintained an intimate bond with fabric. Her inspiration is grounded in a family background where endogenous beliefs and ancestral rites play a central role. In this regard, an artistic residency at Bandjoun Station in Cameroon in 2021 acted as a catalyst. This return to her roots reconnected her with spirituality. “My entire approach found meaning. I felt that life was putting me back in my rightful place.” Since then, her work has explored “the space between ancestors and beliefs,” powerfully illustrated in the Maison Gacha exhibition.
An Exhibition Born from Dialogue Between Material and Memory
The Words of the Fabric-World project took shape in 2023, following the artist’s residency at the Jean-Félicien Gacha Foundation in western Cameroon. There, Barbara Asei Dantoni was initiated into the art of beadwork by master beadworker Igénie Nomba, a decisive encounter that enriched her relationship with female transmission and artisan material.
In 2024, back in Paris, she continued the exchange with Maison Gacha, which invited her to discover its heritage collections. She found an exceptional selection of historic textiles and was enthralled by the Kuba cloths from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their geometric patterns and ritual significance echoed her own artistic vocabulary. From this resonance came the idea for a dialogue between her contemporary creations and ancient cloths through an immersive, meditative exhibition.
Five Textile Works and a Gallery of Faces to Weave the Link
The exhibition is built around five original textile works, evoking sometimes interior landscapes, sometimes symbolic patterns inspired by traditional Kuba art. Hand-embroidered, enriched with beadwork, pigments, dye, and paint, these dense and meticulous pieces belong to the “long time of gesture”—that suspended moment when craft becomes ritual and the hand accesses “invisible worlds,” in the artist’s words.
These contemporary pieces are presented alongside a selection of traditional Kuba cloths, drawn from the Maison Gacha collections. Between past textiles and today’s creations, a genuine conversation develops. Through motifs, textures, and colors, both sets respond to each other, offering a true celebration of African transmission, identity, and spirituality.
In addition, a series of photographic portraits by Barbara Asei Dantoni emphasizes the project’s human dimension. The images depict the beadwork artisans she met during her residency in Bangoulap, women with whom she shared daily life. These faces are tributes to those who embody the living, silent, and powerful transmission of ancestral gesture.
A New Step in a Path Marked by Powerful Works
With Words of the Fabric-World, Barbara Asei Dantoni confirms the maturity of a unique body of work. After Blue Landscape, a monumental tapestry shown at the G7 Summit in Biarritz, she embarked on a decisive turn towards textile art. Her foundational series, Imaginary Identities, laid the groundwork for a practice focused on memory and identity. IDIMA, her first three-dimensional installation born at Bandjoun, deepened this approach. This was followed by OLAM, a mural exploring colonization through Imaginary Identities’ visual codes, and NGOGËLAN, a colorless textile prayer that condenses the essence of gesture. Words of the Fabric-World represents a new phase: more collective, meditative, and deeply spiritual. It is a pivotal work, where textile becomes memory.
This exhibition is part of a vibrant current of activity: after participating in Memoria: Stories of Another History in autumn 2025, Barbara Asei Dantoni will present her first solo show at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Pau, from November 2025 to March 2026. These two landmark events confirm the emergence of a singular artistic voice at the intersection of textile, memory, and the sacred.
