During her residency at the Musée Théodore Monod in Dakar, Senegal, Élise Fitte-Duval worked with everyday artefacts from the Manding Kingdom, which at the time of the European Middle Ages extended roughly over the territory of present-day Mali. The artist is interested in the founding myth of the kingdom. She focusses on the story of the heroic mother Sogolon, the buffalo woman, as the central figure. By changing the perspective, the artist breaks with the conventional traditions of the myth, which focuses on the male hero, Soundjata, and only assigns the mother a secondary role. In the artist's narrative, Sogolon becomes an emancipated woman who plays a leading role in West African society.

Every object, with all its signs of use, tells a story. If objects are viewed as archives of history, they become witnesses to social and political structures. This also applies to the objects that Fitte-Duval selected for her photo series, which were traditionally used by people perceived as female for their everyday work. The artist looks at the historical tools from a decidedly Black feminist perspective and links them to the female body in her photo collages. The objects become symbols of both oppression and self-empowerment – then and now. The photographs are a critique of the reduction of the female body to stereotypical duties, such as housework and reproduction, and present a strong, beautiful and powerful woman: Une Femme puissante.