Delphine Diallo, photographer, working and living in New-York. Photography © Delphine Diallo
1.Could you introduce yourself and the purpose of your artistic work?
I am a French Senegalese visual artist and portraitist photographer based in Brooklyn, New York. My work is center on womanhood, blackness, and marginalized communities, spirituality, and healing.
The black female body has been photographed as sculpture, form, and cultural furniture for a white gaze. I am creating space for a language of photography that presents black women the way they see themselves. Photographs so far in history have a very limited interpretation of people of color, so I had this amazing passion and dream to embody new mythology of women of color.
2.How important are social networks in your work?
Through the social network, I was able to create a platform for my art. Most of my opportunities have come from people who discovered my work on Instagram. I have been very consistent for years about telling the story and his meanings.
3.Could you share with us the impact of the crisis on the promotion of your work and the way you are facing this situation?
This crisis challenges me a lot. Financially and creatively, I shift my way of dealing with my daily life. Changing my thought, taking a distance from the news, doing deeper research on our idea of reality, consciousness, how vibrations, the frequency can help us to rewire our mind. I bring more attention to the present moment and I am finding new ideas. My creativity is boost with the pandemic because I can enter another space… where time disappears… very similar to Dali’s painting, specifically the melting clock.
4.What’s your favourite museum and why?
I recently traveled to Amsterdam for work and I discovered the Tropenmuseum. It was the first time that I saw such a diverse list of artists in multimedia, installation, visual art, sound, storytelling. The selection was outstanding.
The objects in the collection each tell a unique, human story and awaken our curiosity about the enormous cultural diversity that enriches the world around us. The building is one of the most beautiful buildings in the Netherland ( open date 1926). The collection bears witness to universal human themes such as mourning, celebration, seduction, prayer, and conflict. From Africa to Western and South-East Asia, from New Guinea to Latin America and via narrated and musical journeys, the Tropenmuseum brings one to discover that – for all their differences – people around the world are the same.
Interview by Louise Coussieu Baylac, contributor
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Delphine Diallo on social networks: Instagram
Delphine Diallo is a Brooklyn-based French and Senegalese visual artist and photographer. She graduated from the Académie Charpentier School of Visual Art in Paris in 1999 before working in the music industry for seven years as a special effect motion artist, video editor and graphic designer. In 2008, she moved to New York to explore her own practice after giving up a cooperate Art Director role in Paris.
Diallo was mentored by acclaimed photographer and artist of Peter Beard who was impressed by her creativity and spontaneity before offering her to collaborate for the Pirelli calendar photoshoot in Botswana. Inspired by new environments on this trip, she decided to return to her father’s home city of Saint-Louis in Senegal to start her own vision quest.
Where ever she can, Diallo combines artistry with activism, pushing the many possibilities of empowering women, youth, and cultural minorities through visual provocation. Diallo uses analog and digital photography, collage and illustration, 3D printing and virtual reality technologies as she continues to explore new mediums. She is working towards creating new dimensions and a place where consciousness and art are a universal language by connecting artists, sharing ideas and learning.
