The Legacy of a Sacred Space
Nestled on a road that leads to the compounds of some notable families in Osogbo, and barely a kilometre from the palace of the Ataoja, the monarch of the town, is the residence of late Susanne Wenger. This ancient architectural masterpiece could be identified as a home for art, culture, nature, tradition, and spiritual buoys. Traditionally known as Adunni Olorisa, the Austrian woman, whose contributions to the African traditional religion in Nigeria and beyond, for over 50 years, gave the annual Osun Osogbo festival an impeccable reputation — an action that birthed the recognition of the 73-hectare Osun groove as a UNESCO site; hence bringing uniqueness to the annual rite and making it a globally-recognised festival.
The House That Became a Practice and a Pact
Adedoyin Talabi Ifaniyi, an Osun devotee, priestess, and an adopted daughter of Wenger, in an interview, said the house was never simply a residence. “This house is called the late Baba Kere of Òṣogbo Gbadamosi Fagbire Odewuyi Abolubode. Baba built this house, but when Mama came, they didn’t finish the house, but Mama furnished it to her taste, putting everything in an artistic way. This house is an historic house. But the house belongs to Baba, and Baba belongs to the Abolubode family here. This Abolubode compound in Osogbo,” she said. “Yes, this is a historic house. … It should be over 100 years,” Adedoyin added, noting its age and the need for careful restoration that respects ritual continuity.
The Path Treaded to Ìṣẹ̀ṣe and the New Sacred Art Movement
The arrival of Wenger in Nigeria in the late 1950s — and her subsequent initiation into the Ìṣẹ̀ṣe traditions — changed the house’s function. Adedoyin recalled how, immediately after Wenger’s initiation and recovery from illness, she devoted herself to restoration work: “She had her initiation in Ede. Firstly, to Obaluaye and Obatala. She first stayed at the University College, Ibadan, now University of Ibadan,” Adedoyin recalls. “She was sick at the time, but even before she recovered, she was initiated into the Yoruba religion in Ede.”
“She said: ‘This is what I have been looking for,’” Adedoyin recounts. “Ìṣẹ̀ṣe does not leave us outside nature, and Mama loved nature deeply. After the initiation, she was fully recovered.”
But after a while, Mama’s godfather passed away. That broke her heart, and she left Ede for Ilobu and up to this moment, there are still parts of her work at the Olobu’s palace.
Wenger’s spiritual and artistic rebirth coincided with Nigeria’s cultural reawakening. Her early works in Ede and Ilobu reflected her reverence for Yoruba deities and sacred spaces. When she eventually moved to Osogbo, following a divine trance that revealed “Òṣun is calling you,” Wenger found her true home — both spiritual and artistic.
From those early rooms, plans for shrines and ritual sculptures emerged. The courtyard and inner rooms were used as a workshop and as a place of instruction and collaboration for the group that came to be known as the New Sacred Art Movement — local artists and apprentices who worked alongside Wenger to regenerate the grove’s material and spiritual fabric. Scholars and museum accounts identify Adebisi Akanji and others as central associates of that movement; their collaborative output remains visible across the grove.
The Building of a Sculptural Forte
Adedoyin spoke about the sequence of Wenger’s restoration work. “She did not start with the Òṣun Grove. She started with Idi Baba, that is, the Obalúayé shrine, because the Obaluaye shrine then was in bad shape, and she went there to restore the shrine. After Obalúayé’s shrine, Mama went to Idi Baba. After Idi Baba, Mama went to the Osun Oluseyin shrine to do the restoration there too. After finishing with that, she then started with the Osun main shrine at a spot called Ayedaakun.”
The sculptures and reliefs conceived partly in the house took on monumental physicality along the riverbanks. “Mama would not do her artwork without meditating. So through that she got how she could do the restoration of the sculptures there,” Adedoyin said. The meditative approach, the collaborative building and the material choices — cement, iron armatures, clay applications — are noted by UNESCO as both crucial to the grove’s revival and as a contemporary conservation challenge due to vulnerability of the materials.
The House as Hub of Ritual, Pedagogy, and Archive
For Adedoyin, the house was also a classroom and a spiritual home. She described how Wenger encouraged talent and organised artists into a loose cooperative. She noted that “Mama also formed the group called the New Sacred Art Movement. Because to her, Mama believed that everyone has talent, so through that she formed a group called the New Sacred Art Movement. Mama did not teach art, but mama could encourage you to bring out your talents. So those were the artists working with her. The house in the grove that they work. The group worked hand in hand together.”
That movement did more than produce sculptures. It renewed ceremonial observance, revived rituals, and provided an address from which champions of the grove could write, lobby and negotiate — including appeals to national and international bodies that would ultimately form part of the case for UNESCO recognition. Adedoyin recounted Wenger’s persistent activism towards preserving the groove: “Mama wrote countless letters to UNESCO through the Nigerian Conservation Society then, now the Nigerian Field Society. She used to say, ‘It’s my worry. How will this forest be secured?’ Things like that. So, she kept writing to UNESCO,” she said. UNESCO’s nomination dossier and advisories record local and collaborative efforts as central to inscription.
A Living Museum Under Renovation
Adedoyin explained that the house, though under renovation, still plays an active role in festival life. She explained that the renovation is funded by a non-governmental organisation (NGO). “It is through an NGO. The house is old. The roof, the windows. It started deteriorating… everything needs restoration, not just renovation,” she said. She also confirmed the house’s public role: “Yes, people like journalists, Isese people, the students, the researchers, the artists, the architects come throughout the year, but especially around the Osun festival.”
Adedoyin’s testimony situates the house as a “living museum” — a place where artifacts are still used in ritual, where the social life that produced those artifacts continues and where students still arrive to study the confluence of art and religion. She detailed the ways the site is managed: “You know we have the body of NGOs, and we have the family, the New Sacred Art Movement, the Àdunni Olorisa Òṣun Foundation, Ladepoju Foundation, the Superneewinger, they come together like this on how the house is managed.”
Death, Continuity, and Questions of Stewardship
Adedoyin spoke candidly about Wenger’s final years and the continuity of care for the house and grove. Wenger, she said, taught them to accept death as natural: “Mama, at her last time, used to tell us that ‘I want you to realise that death is part of nature.’” Wenger’s death on January 12, 2009, at age 94 marked the end of a life but not of the programme she fostered; the house and the New Sacred Art Movement continue to steward the grove and its rituals.
What the House Means to Osogbo and Beyond
As Osogbo’s festival season arrives each year, tens of thousands come to the grove and pass near this house. Some pause to offer prayers; others pass unaware of the house’s role in the grove’s revival. But for custodians like Adedoyin, the house remains central: “The motive of the place is not about collecting money. No, that’s not it. It’s to serve humanity. It’s more based on humanitarian grounds. Students come here to do research.”
I Became Her Adopted Daughter from a Tender Age – Priestess Ifaniyi
Ifaniyi recalled her connection to Wenger, and how it began in infancy, long before she understood the full meaning of the spiritual and cultural work taking place around her.
She said: “I became her adopted daughter from a tender age — from when I was a baby,” she said.
She grew up in the house, attending schools across Osogbo, beginning at Benedict Primary School, later St. James Modern School, and then Osogbo Grammar School. She later wrote entrance examinations for Ileodu Saviour High School, continuing her education before obtaining a certificate course in Yoruba Oral Tradition; Yoruba Art at the University of Ilorin for first degree, and Master’s in African Studies at the University of Ibadan, at the Institute of African Studies.
As a priestess, she added that “I lecture as a guest lecturer at Rahmat University and also at Harvard University. Even this year, I lectured them on African traditional religion. The Graduate School of Design and Architecture invited me again to lecture on African architecture. I also attended the Commonwealth Games in the early 2000s. I travelled for cultural programmes across different countries.”