Ibrahima Thiam, Untitled, Series Maam Coumba Castel, 2024. Print on Hahnemühle FineArt paper; 75x112cm Regarded as a tool for capturing reality, photography has unsurprisingly been paired with the idea of veracity since its inception. However, innovative usages of the medium, especially by historical avant-gardes and contemporary photographers, have challenged its status, allowing for a broader understanding of its purpose and function.
Among the medium's innovators is Ibrahima Thiam, a Senegalese artist and photographer who explores the history and mythology of his country. His recent series, presented at the OH Gallery in Dakar, highlights the oral history and divinities of the Lebu communities, in particular the figure of Maam Couma Castel. The series continues his explorations of the theme and follows the previous presentations of Maam Njaré, Nedeuk Ndaour, and Maam Coumba Bang series.
Central to Ibrahima Thiam's practice is his rejection of Western epistemologies and modalities of representation. While ingrained in colonial visual politics, representations of non-Western cultures rested on the idea of supposed truthfulness, where the gaze of colonial explorers was deemed authoritative and world-defining. The predominance of Western visual language in art, including its hierarchies and modes of representation, has been meaningfully challenged during the rise of anti-colonial movements when alternative epistemologies and visual vocabularies were explored.
New visual languages entering the global art scene have broadened the scope of possibilities, incorporating indigenous and local histories and visual representations into contemporary art. Thiam's approach follows this trajectory, as evidenced by his earliest works, including his first series, Reflections (2010), in which he poetically addressed the topic of floodings in Saint-Louis. Rather than adopting a documentary approach, Thiam focused on meaning beyond the obvious, presenting the city and its inhabitants through their reflections on water puddles.
Moving seamlessly across media and methods—including photography, installations, sonic landscapes, and archival interventions—Thiam explores diverse regional narratives and histories. Among these are the exhibited works from his Maam Couma Castel series.
The interest in the series, as well as its previous iterations, began in 2017 when Thiam visited the Lebou community in Senegal. Spending time with the locals, conducting research, and even participating in the N’döep ritual of healing, revealed to Thiam the rich history and cosmology of the group. Using archival and contemporary materials and photographs, he focused on divinities and ancestral spirits, associating each with their coastal towns, presented in the series Maam Coumba Bang in Saint Louis (2018), Maam Ndeuk Daour Mbaye in Dakar (2020), Maam Njaré Jaw in Yöf (2020), and the latest Maam Coumba Castel in Gorée Island (2024).
Morphing with animals and richly decorated, these figures reference various local traditions and costumes; in the works presented at OH Gallery, Maam Coumba Castel features a sparkling red robe and conical shaped headdress reminiscent of Bamana helmet masks or Bwa headgear. They are "invisible spirits and forces who protect their towns and communities, living between the visible and invisible worlds, between land and water. These mystical presences are half-woman, half-man, half-animal."
Instead of striving for representation grounded in reality and materiality of existence, Thiam’s figures are blurred and often moving, revealing presences and truths beyond the ocular, inviting an affective rather than rational, scientific response.
These beings, as the artist explains, "shed light on our way of being in the world," and invite us to "reflect on ourselves, our relationships, and the world we inhabit." Through his archival-based methodology, Thiam shows us that sight can be misleading, and learning to unsee—to go beyond learned iconologies—can open broader perspectives.
The exhibition Yoonou Ndokhe, The Voice of Water, will be on view at the OH Gallery in Dakar until January 18th, 2025.
