“I want to create a space for women to be stronger. I hope that when they look at the photographs they feel stronger because they see themselves through my eyes.”
Delphine Diallo
Delphine Diallo is a French-Senegalese visual artist and photographer who left behind a career in the music industry to pursue a new path – Photography. Her photographic career took off in 2008 when she took a trip to Botswana. It was so profound she traveled to her father’s home city in Senegal to explore his roots.
“I am not taking pictures, I am giving pictures.”
Her goal is to have a new language of photography that presents black women the way they see themselves. She believes the black female body has been photographed as a sort of cultural furniture for a white gaze. Too many images of African and African diasporic women have stripped them of their subjectivity.
Delphine aims to change these dynamics so that every woman photographed feels the image she makes of them is a personal gift. She puts it this way: “I am not taking pictures, I am giving pictures.”
Delphine’s Portraiture
Delphine’s portraiture is all about connection and exchange. She believes women are deep beings and connects with them on an emotional level. The French-Senegalese photographer spends more time speaking with her subjects than photographing them. This involves discussing their experiences as a woman, their family, and other aspects of life.
By engaging in intimate conversations, Delphine removes the sense of vulnerability that often comes with being photographed. Working with body painters, jewelry, and mask makers, Delphine also uses traditional mythology and spiritual symbols, to empower her subjects.
Seeking to challenge the norms of our society, she immerses herself in the realm of anthropology, mythology, religion, science, and also martial arts to release her mind.
Her mediums are analog and digital photography, collage and illustration, 3D printing, and virtual reality. She continues to explore other mediums to create new dimensions and a place where consciousness and art are a universal language.
“Photographs so far in history have a very limited interpretation of people of colour. So I had this amazing passion and dream to embody a new mythology of women of colour. Portraiture for me was the key to doing it.”
Also, See How Laolu Senbanjo is Sharing The Beauty of African Stories Through Arts!
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