Teme, 2013

Aperture is pleased to release this limited-edition print by Fatoumata Diabate in conjunction with the publication of "Platform Africa". “Diabate created a mobile studio, which she has installed in Bamako, as well as in the French cities of Arles and Montpellier. Clients entering this nostalgic studio are encouraged to choose props and clothes, pose in front of a textile backdrop, and spontaneously slip into other identities. The studio is a stage-like, open-air installation where the whole process becomes a performance. The final portraits create something of a playful time lag: Diabate’s twenty-first-century clients enter her small-time machine, which transports them back to the golden age of studio photography in Bamako.” —Franziska Jenni, from Aperture #Issue 227: “Platform Africa”

Archival Pigment Print on Fiber Paper
Paper Size: 16 x 20 inches
Image Size: 32 x 22 inches
Edition of 7 and 2 Artist’s Proofs
Signed and numbered by the artist

Fatoumata Diabate (b. 1980, Bamako, Mali) has participated in several group exhibitions (Bamako Encounters 2005, 2009 and 2011; Kornhaus Museum of Bern in Switzerland, etc.) and has had several solo exhibitions (Festival of Visages francophones de Cahors, France; the Malians of Montreuil, outside the walls of the quai Branly museum, among others). She has reported for World Press Photo, Oxfam, and Rolex. In December 2005, she received the Africa in creation prize of the French Association for Artistic Action (AFAA) for her work, Tuareg, in gestures and movements. In 2011 she was awarded the Blachère Foundation prize for her work entitled The Animal in Man; the prize was an atelier in Arles and an exhibition at the Blachère Foundation. She is currently developing an art project about soutiki youth (The night is ours).