Artist Caroline Gueye discusses her work Space Between Signs and her contribution to the 2026 Venice Biennale’s Senegal Pavilion. WURUS (gold in Wolof) is an exhibition of new works curated by Massamba Mbaye and conceived as a spatial system where perception is continuously questioned. 

—Could you start by telling us a bit about yourself?

My name is Caroline Gueye. I am a Senegalese visual artist living across several countries. My work explores perception, space, and the construction of the gaze through sculpture, installation, and spatial environments. Each work is conceived in conversation with its environment, and invites viewers to see and move through space in unfamiliar ways. 

—Your career, which has taken you from astrophysics to art, is particularly distinctive. How does this transdisciplinary trajectory influence your artistic practice today?

My background in fundamental physics and astrophysics deeply shapes the way I think — more than it appears in a literal or illustrative way in my works. My research remains primarily artistic; and although I do not seek to popularise science through art, this training has given me an acute understanding of the complexity of forms, spatial relationships, dimensions, scales, and precision, as well as a particular way of approaching questions and concepts. This mindset informs the way I construct perception and think of space as something dynamic and relational. 

—This year, the Venice Biennale has become a space for strong political expression and debate. As an artist who has lived across several continents, do you find yourself engaging with these concerns, and how do you perceive this dynamic?

I think it is difficult today to fully separate art from the political and social contexts in which we live. Having lived in different countries has made me particularly attentive to issues of perception, displacement, and the coexistence of multiple perspectives. However, I do not seek to make direct political statements. I am more interested in how spaces, systems of perception and questions of value shape our relationship to the world.

[About the work Space Between Signs]

—What initially sparked the idea for this piece, particularly in relation to the dialogue it creates between Japanese and Senegalese (African) cultural elements? 

I have a deep appreciation for Asian calligraphy. I am drawn to the delicacy of the paper, and the format I used in the work is of particular importance to me. What I also appreciate is that this type of paper exists across several Asian cultures and countries, and that in a way it can become a connecting element despite the differences between these regions. There is already the idea of circulation built into it.

In this work, I wanted to use two materials that, at first, did not seem made to coexist: the fragility of paper and the metallic presence of brass, the classical and the contemporary. My focus was above all on the material, spatial, and perceptual qualities of these elements. This image came to me instinctively and it immediately became a fixed idea. It required an entirely different understanding of brass that would allow the metal to enter into dialogue with the paper and become ‘the space between signs,’ which is also the title of the piece. I was not necessarily trying to produce an explicit cultural fusion between Asia and Africa, but was rather interested in creating a space of circulation where different sensitivities, visual rhythms, and ways of inhabiting emptiness, signs, and relations could cohabit.

 —What led you to incorporate a kakemono as a central element in the work?

What drew me to the kakemono was its verticality, its aesthetic, and the relationship it establishes with the body and with space — particularly when brought into contact with brass. It also introduces a particular temporality into the act of looking. It functions more like a surface of suspension or passage than a simple support, and allowed me to create a tension between the lightness of the paper and the metallic structure of the brass.

—In the exhibition text, you describe how each element is determined by another, and how nothing in the installation holds value on its own. Could you elaborate on how these two cultural spheres are brought into conversation within the piece, and what kinds of connections, values, or ideas were you hoping to explore or bring into dialogue through this piece? 

For me, the very special thing about this work is the way different elements can enter into relation and produce a new perceptual experience. The title Space Between Signs precisely evokes this intermediate space: a place of circulation, tension, and transformation at the same time, where different forms, materials, cultures, and ways of seeing converge.The brass structures do not cover the kakemono: as we move around the structure, they cast shadows on the paper and draw the eye into the piece.
Like the rest of the works in the exhibition, the work exists as much in its materiality as in the invisible relationships it creates around itself—within a perceptual continuity where light, shadows, movement, and space are not completely isolated elements.

Photos: Courtesy of Caroline Gueye

2026.05.28