The Return of Morocco to the Lagoon

Venice—ever the stage for art’s most elaborate performances—will welcome Morocco’s first pavilion in 2026, after the abrupt cancellation of its 2024 debut. Representing the nation is Marrakesh-based artist Amina Agueznay, whose work drapes cultural memory over the bones of modern form. Her presentation, Asatta—a Pali word meaning “non-attached”—will unfurl between May 9 and November 22, curated by Meriem Berrada, artistic director at MACAAL.

Where some pavilions shout for attention, Agueznay’s promises a slower vibration, in harmony with the Biennale’s theme In Minor Keys, the final curatorial gesture of the late Koyo Kouoh: an invitation for a weary world to soften, heal, and listen.

From Architecture to the Loom

Agueznay’s trajectory is as layered as her woven works. The daughter of Moroccan modernist Malika Agueznay—a central figure of the Casablanca Art School—she trained as an architect in the United States before returning home in 1997.

I always go back to my architectural primary elements of form: lines, planes, and volumes.

– Her architectural discipline still threads through her art: in her own words.

In her 2024 work Portal 1, palm husk thread—humble, fibrous, and local—was transformed into patterns echoing Moroccan carpets and the doors of fortified Maghreb villages. The piece was modeled after her own hand-drawn sketch, anchoring modern abstraction in ancestral design.

The Art of Weaving Heritage

Weaving, for Agueznay, is not mere craft—it is a philosophy. “

It’s about going back to the line,” she told The Guardian.

– She told The Guardian.

That line is both literal and metaphorical: a formal element from her architectural past, and a lifeline to Morocco’s artisanal traditions. Her collaborations with women artisans are not acts of preservation alone—they are acts of transformation, in which heritage becomes a living, adaptive structure.

Her selection came from a nationwide open call, one of 29 proposals reviewed by a Ministry of Culture–appointed committee chaired by Mehdi Qotbi, president of the National Foundation of Museums.

The 2026 pavilion is not just a debut—it’s a reclamation. After the mysterious dismantling of Morocco’s 2024 plans, Asatta signals both continuity and renewal, linking the country’s modernist roots with its contemporary pulse. It will be Morocco’s gesture to the world: a woven architecture of memory, a dialogue in minor keys, and a quiet reminder that art’s most enduring power is its ability to connect the ancient to the urgently now.