Carrie Mae Weems

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.