Born in 1980, lives and works between Montpellier and Bamako.
Interested in humanist and social portraiture and photography, her images are mainly about women and young generations in Mali. The oral tradition, the beliefs, the question of the transmission are at the heart of her work. Usual objects, improvised masks and clothes become in her portraits the symbolic vectors of a common living memory, constantly reinvented.
Fatoumata Diabaté has also developed the project Le studio photo de la rue, reconstituting a mobile urban studio in the vein of Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta. Claiming her artistic heritage, she pays tribute, with humour and lightness, to the Malian photographic repertoire.
After studying photography at the Promo Femmes audiovisual training centre and at the CFP in Bamako from 2002 to 2004, Fatoumata Diabaté worked as a technician in the centre's film laboratory until 2009. In 2014 and 2015 she was awarded a scholarship at the ENSA in Nancy.
Her work has been the subject of several exhibitions in Mali, France and abroad, including at the Fondation Blachère (2012), at the Muséum national du Havre (2017), at the Musée rouge de Canton and at the Shutter space, Chengdu (2019).
Fatoumata Diabate also took part in the Biennale de la photographie de Bamako (2009, 2011), to the Voies off festival in Arles (2018), to the Biennale de Dakar (2018) and to the Festival photo La Gacilly (2017).
Since December 2017, she is president of the association of women photographers of Mali. In 2021 she is a laureate of the Photographic Residencies of the Musée du Quai Branly.
FATOUMATA DIABATÉ
CURRICULUM VITAE
GROUP SHOWS
2020
Small, 31 PROJECT, Paris - France
A contre-courant, Domaine de Chamarande - France
Artissima, 50 Golborne gallery, Milan - Italy
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, 31 PROJECT, Cape Town – South Africa
Wild Spirits, galerie Charles-Wesley Hourdé/ PROJECT, BRAFA Art Fair – Brussels
2019
Exposition Jouons !, Hong Museum, Chengdu – China
Exposition Jouons !, Shuter Art Space, Guangzhou – China
Galerie Collector Daily, Brooklin – USA
2018
Festival Voies off à Arles – France
AKAA ART FAIR, Galerie 50Golborn, Paris – France
Festival photo la Gacilly, Baden – Austria
Red Hook Labs, Nataal New African Photography III, New York – USA
La FAAP Le Carrefour OFF, 13ème édition de la Biennale de Dakar – Senegal
The Friends of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Miami – USA
2017
Festival Les Boutographies, Montpellier – France
Le Havre – Dakar, partager la mémoire, Museum national du Havre – France
Festival Photo de La Gacilly – France
2015
Regard croisés sur l’Afrique, Domfront en Champagne – France
Femmes photographes, Hôtel ONOMO, Dakar – Senegal
Dakar Bamako Phénomènes urbains, Village des arts, Dakar – Senegal
2014
Bamako Dakar Westafrikanische Fotograhie heute, Stadhaus Ulm, Stuttgart – Germany
The space betwen us, Ifa galerie Berlin, Stuttgart – Germany
2013
Bamako photo in Paris, Pavillon Carré Baudouin, Paris – France
Réconciliation, Galerie (GIZ) Bonn – Germany
2012
Pour un monde durable, Fondation Blachère, Apt – France
Projection Crossing Point Residency, La Nuit de la Roquette, Arles – France
2011
African DIGITALART, Paris Photo - France
Pour un monde durable, 9ème Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie de Bamako - Mali
Burkina, 50 ans d’Indépendance, Ambassade du Burkina Faso, Bamako - Mali
La ville en mouvement, Collectif Jaabugusso, Bamako - Mali
2010
Festival Ciné Nomade, Tarifa - Spain
Mali au Féminin, Musée de Bretagne, Rennes - France
2009
Regard croisé, 8ème Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie de Bamako - Off, Blabla Club, Bamako - Mali
Festival Ciné Nomade, Tarifa - Spain
Aquitaines Afriques: contact, Zones, Centre culturel Blaise Senghor, Dakar - Senegal
Les Bozos, Institut National des Arts de Bamako - Mali
Education Abroad, Institut Français, Bamako - Mali
2006/2008
D’Ailleurs, Espace Arlaud, Lausanne - Switzerland
Aquitaines Afriques: contact, Zones, Migrations Culturelles Aquitaine-Afriques, Bordeaux - France
Itinéraires de Photographes Voyageurs, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux - France.
Fête Traditionnelle de la Pêche à la San Sangue Mo, San - Mali
2005
Un Autre Monde, Kornhausforum, Berne - Switzerland
L’été photographique de Lectoure, Regards croisés Bamako-Paris, Lectoure - France
2004
25 quartiers de Bamako avec 5 jeunes photographes maliens, organisé par le CNA, Bamako - Mali
2003
La Mode, Festival Visages francophones, Cahors - France
Travaux de Femmes, Kornhausforum, Berne - Switzerland
2002
Portraits de femmes, Festival du Théâtre des Réalités, au CFP, au Palais de la Culture, au Centre Awa Keita, au centre Culturel Français, au musée du District de Bamako et au Musée Muso Kunda, Bamako - Mali
Les Anciennes bâtisses coloniales, Association Promo-Femmes, Musée de Bamako - Mali
SOLO SHOWS
2019
Objet / Homme / Animal, 31 project, Paris – France
2018
Mini Mono, galerie Negpos, Nîmes - France
Mini Mono, galerie Afrique en vie, Rencontres d’Arles - France
Mini Mono, galerie Aux-Docs, Rencontres d’Arles - France
2017
Caméléon, Gazette café Montpellier - France
2016
L’Homme en animal - L’Homme en objet, Club des arts, Conseil de l’Europe, Strasbourg - France
2013
Natten äre vär (À nous la nuit), Marabouparken, Stockholm - Sweden
2012
Sutigi (À nous la nuit), Alliance Française, Accra - Ghana
2011
Maliens de Montreuil, Musée du Quai Branly, hors les murs, Paris - France
2006
Touareg en geste et mouvement, Blabla bar, Bamako - Mali
2004
Festival visage de la Francophonie, Cahors - France
REPORTAGES - Selection
2016
Report on development, agriculture, livestock and education in Mali for the Helvetas annual report - Switzerland
Report on access to medicines in West Africa for the World Health Organisation
2013
Report on the Ebola vaccine test in Mali. Commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
2012
Report on adult literacy in Mali for the Adult Education Development journal
2010
Report on the food crisis in Niger for Oxfam UK
2008
Report on the Malians of Montreuil (France), as part of the Hors les murs project of the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris
Report on Bamako for CIDCOM (Groupe Jeune Afrique Paris), Mali
Report on Malick Sidibé in Bamako for Gwin Zegal, Holland
Report on Youssou N'Dour for the Rolex Arts Initiative in Dakar, Senegal
RESIDENCIES
2021
Winner of the Quai Branly Museum's photographic residencies program
AWARDS
Prix Fondation Blachère, 9ème Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie, Bamako - Mali , novembre 2011
Prix AFAA - Afrique en création, 6ème Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie, Bamako - Mali, novembre 2005
EDUCATION
Bourse à l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Nancy – ENSA, 2014-2015
Certificat de Photographie-Centre de Formation en Photographie (C.F.P.), Bamako - Mali, 2004
Formation à Promo–Femmes, 2001
Diplôme d’Etudes Fondamentales (D.E.F.), Bamako - Mali, 1996
WITH 31 PROJECT
PUBLICATION
EXHIBITIONS
2020
SMALL, group show
OBJET / HOMME / ANIMAL, solo show
ARTFAIRS
2020
Investec Cape Town Art Fair
BRAFA