Mariam Issoufou speaks at the 2026 Engadin Art Talk

Mariam Issoufou and Philip Ursprung were in conversation following Mariam’s talk titled Mind the Gap: On Museums, Architectural Fictions and the Future.

Mariam Issoufou was one of the invited speakers at the Engadin Art Talks (E.A.T), that took place in Zuoz Switzerland last month.

Engadin Art Talks (E.A.T.) serve as a multidisciplinary platform that facilitates meaningful discourse among artists, curators, scholars and the audience. The platform’s intention is to manifest diverse voices in order to cross-pollinate knowledge and share insights, ideas and perspectives that lead to innovation, awareness and connection.

In her talk titled Mind The Gap: on Museums, Architectural Fictions and the Future, Issofuou gave a personal childhood account of visiting Neolithic caves in Niger when she was young and how horrified she was to find them emptied on a recent visit. She also spoke about the work she is doing with students in the Chair for Architecture Heritage and Sustainability at ETH Zurich, to speculatively think through the process of restitution and what happens to these museums should artifacts be returned.

She added that: “Now might actually be the perfect time for museums to transition away from being places of gluttony and incessant collecting, and instead become places of repair — places of community, of encounter, and of coming into contact with the other in less violent ways.”

Listen to the talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb-e11gxbi8&t=20s