Fatoumata Diabate: Teme, 2013
“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, in Aperture Issue #227: “Platform Africa”
Each limited-edition print is hand-packed with great care and ships from New York within 3–5 days.