This summer, the Galleria Borghese in Rome is infused with strength, poetry, and African roots through Black Soil Poems, an exhibition by Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu, sponsored by FENDI. And yes, it’s a historic moment: Mutu is the first living woman to have a solo exhibition in this museum.

Until September 14, 2025, the museum’s galleries, façade, and secret gardens are transformed into settings for a new, radical, and beautiful mythology. Mutu’s sculptures hang from the ceiling, float, or rest on tables… they seem to rise straight from the earth. Bronze, wood, feathers, soil, water, and wax: organic materials that engage with classical tradition through a feminine, African, and contemporary lens.

The works don’t try to overshadow the Borghese collection—they create dialogue, turning the museum from a static container of ancient objects into a living, evolving space filled with new and imagined memories.

Out in the gardens, sculptures like The Seated I and Nyoka challenge classical ideals with hybrid forms that blend humanity, myth, and symbol. Inside, pieces like First Weeping Head and Grains of War speak through silence, sound, and history.

The exhibition also extends to the American Academy in Rome, where Shavasana I—a bronze figure lying beneath a straw mat—reminds us that even in death, there is poetry.

Black Soil Poems is an experience that invites us to look differently, to inhabit the museum through new voices and memories. And FENDI, true to its mission of uniting fashion, art, and culture, makes it possible for this powerful conversation to flourish in the heart of Rome.