At Iowa City’s Stanley Museum of Art, two photography exhibitions show how Ibrahima Thiam works with archives and spiritual heritage. An archive changes when the person working with it is also an artist shaping how its materials are understood.
Portraiture & Archives in African Photography brings together six artists whose work spans 1963–2024: Malick Sidibé, Tijani Sitou, Zohra Opoku, Ibrahima Thiam, Hassan Hajjaj, and Zanele Muholi. Ibrahima Thiam co-curated the exhibition with Allison Martino and Beth Buggenhagen.
The Stanley describes Thiam’s archival work through his research during a 2024 residency at the Eskenazi Museum of Art, where he studied Sidibé and Sitou holdings. In Thiam’s new work, Tijani Sitou’s son Malick authorized reproductions of his father’s photographs. The new work carries an older photograph forward with the family’s permission.
A separate exhibition, Maam Njaré: Goddess of Water, focuses specifically on Thiam’s photographs and the Lebou spiritual heritage of Senegal. The Stanley describes Maam Njaré as a water-protecting deity associated with purification and community identity; Thiam’s photographs engage that oral and spiritual heritage, with interpretive texts also available in French.
Both exhibitions continue through December 13, 2026. The Stanley Museum of Art is free and located at 160 West Burlington Street.
