Madrasat ‘Athina by Maïmouna Guerresi is an artistic project that enters into dialogue with Raphael’s The School of Athens. While the Renaissance fresco celebrated the masculine wisdom of ancient Greece, this new work aims to pay homage to feminine knowledge and to the educational traditions of the African and Muslim worlds.
The Madrasa of Athens envisions a school for women, in which figures such as the mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria emerge among others. Beneath a pointed arch typical of Islamic architecture, several students (ṭālibī) applaud, as if celebrating a new center of learning.
The Madrasa of Athens takes shape as a symbolic space of encounter between cultures, eras, and systems of knowledge, celebrating the women who, despite exclusion, have preserved and transmitted the light of wisdom.