Following the Sun. Agnes Essonti Luque

Unguent

Water, juniper, palm oil, honey, coconut milk, catfish, popcorn… An offering to heal every wound. Actions that heal. That strip off layers of dead skin. Of atrophied limbs. Of poisoned ghosts.

Agnes Essonti Luque will be entering into a ritualistic dialogue based on Ibori, a Yoruba ritual that aims to satisfy your Ori (a consciousness of the hereafter) through offerings, especially food. In front of Tàpies’ Mitjó [Sock], the Cameroonian–Spanish artist will use a series of unguents, making her own body into the medium. With these actions, the artist seeks to share with the audience ways of neutralising the frustrations of the past, offering a possible solution through simple gestures that, with repetition, become sacred. She invites us to recognise that rituals are for everybody and to realise that they can help to connect to ancestral wisdom, fonts of hidden powers, reserves of vitality and arsenals of protection.

Agnes Essonti Luque is a Cameroonian–Spanish artist and curator, whose work is inspired by black and post-colonial feminist thinkers and revolves around topics like ancestral connections, memories of childhood and nostalgia. Her work spans a range of media, including photography, textiles, installations and performances. In recent years she has explored the construction of Afro-diasporic identities and the tireless search for home, focusing on processes of hybridisation and pidginisation. She sees her own work as a way of offering new readings of historical events and reimagining better futures.

Her work has featured in various national and international exhibitions and events, among them Manifesta 15 (2024), Foodscapes, the Spanish Pavilion at the 18th Venice Biennale of Architecture (2023) and 1384 Days Wide at Rencontres de Bamako (2015). Her performances have been presented at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS). Her work A Journey is part of the MNCARS collection.

Photo credit: Viatge, sol, eternitat. © Quique Curbelo, 2025.