Adji Dieye

Adji Dieye is a Senegalese and Italian artist whose practice is concerned with unpicking cultural stereotypes. Dieye investigates the power dynamics within photography, questioning how images from advertising, propaganda and archives affect an individual’s self-identity. West African photographers of the 1950s and 60s, such as Malick Sidibé, Seydou Keïta and Oumar Ly influence her work heavily. Echoing the aesthetic style of these artists, Dieye combines contemporary photographs of everyday scenes with archival images. Sometimes, she also incorporates 3D models and prototypes of buildings, layering these diverse references in moving image works and installations. In a 2020 project Culture Lost and Learned for example, Dieye printed archival images sourced from the National Archives of Senegal onto long pieces of silk, draping these pieces of fabric through built metal structures. Moving between fluid and concrete matter, this presentation of archival imagery speaks to the construction of identity in post-independence West Africa—a principal concern of Dieye’s work.