Presenting an overview of the artistry and career of internationally renowned Malian photographer Malick Sidibé, “Picturing Identity” focuses on Sidibé’s portrait photographs taken in Bamako, Mali’s capital city, between 1960-2009. To deepen our understanding of these images, this presentation unpacks the ways in which Sidibé’s clients used portrait photography to explore, construct, and preserve desired aspects of their self-identity, considering the particular facets they sought to convey, the types of personalities and relationships they wished to portray, and how Sidibé and his apprentices were able to visually articulate and emphasize those in photographs through artistic innovations and the application of local aesthetic ideals. Moreover, it looks at how Sidibé employed similar methods within a series of photographs that he purposefully created for an international—particularly Western—audience in the 21st century; thereby, it addresses the potential power indigenous aesthetics have in global contexts while highlighting Sidibé’s particular contributions to contemporary humanistic and artistic dialog.

Recorded February 2, 2023