Mali is a landlocked country with its northern borders extending deep into the heart of the Sahara Desert, while its southern regions are bounded by the Niger and Senegal rivers. Positioned in the torrid zone, Mali ranks among the hottest countries globally.
Following its independence from France in 1960, Mali faced numerous challenges, including droughts, rebellions, a coup, and 23 years of military dictatorship until democratic elections were held in 1992. Despite these adversities, Mali possesses an extraordinary artistic and cultural heritage. It has produced some of the world’s most brilliant photographers and continues to captivate the attention of photojournalists worldwide.
1. Malick Sidibé – Kadiatou Touré avec mes verres fumés, 1969
Malick Sidibé, “the Eye of Bamako”, captured the euphoric life of the youth of Bamako from the 50’s through to the 70’s. His life’s work focuses around scenes of celebration and depicts the burgeoning rise of pop culture in the Malian capital. As well as attending and shooting hundreds of parties, Sidibé prolifically documented young people in his studio, striking poses against patterned backdrops. Rather than focussing on a narrative, Sidibé was interested in faces: “It’s a world, someone’s face,” he once said “When I capture it, I see the future of the world.”
2. Kristof Vadino – ‘Camp Fulani Mali’
In the Faladie camp, located near Bamako’s international airport, Kristof Vadino captures this striking portrait of a woman and her family. This camp provides shelter for internally displaced persons, primarily Fulani herdsmen, who have fled the conflicts with Dogon peasants in North and Central Mali. These tensions have intensified since the militant Islamist uprising in the northern region of the country in 2012, exacerbating longstanding conflicts between the settled Dogon community and the Fulani herders in the center of the country.
3. Seydou Keita – Tijani Sitou and Pretty Radio, 1978
Seydou Keita, Mali’s other superstar studio portraitist, balanced sense a of formality with an acute intimacy with his subjects. His great resourcefulness and talent for improvising are evident in his photos. He’d use household items to create his studio, draping rugs and fabrics over string to create backdrops for his portraits, and furnished his studio with various props, from costumes to Vespas.
Renewing these props every few years gives a sense of chronology to his work. Since he was one of the most well-regarded photographers in Mali, people would often travel to be immortalised in their best clothes, bringing with them their most treasured possessions. His huge archive of over 10,000 negatives came to light in the 90’s, earning him worldwide recognition.
4. Brent Stirton – The Manuscripts of Timbuktu, 2009
– A cache of African manuscripts stored in Abdel Kader Haidara’s home, 2009
In Brent Stirton‘s picture, we see 1 million manuscripts that were found in the homes and Libraries of Timbuktu. Scriptures covering “all the fields of human knowledge: law, the sciences, medicine”, some dating back to the 13th Century. The manuscripts had been passed down in Malian families and were mostly in poor condition, but the monumental discoveries and preservation of these historic artifacts have changed historic readings of African culture. For centuries it has been wrongly taught that Africa had no written history, literature, or philosophy (Egypt was branded as “other” than African).
5. Sibylle Bergemann – Timbuktu, Mysterious city of the desert, 2004
German photographer Sibylle Bergemann has captured a moment almost akin to a mirage in this photo. A woman in wild red traverses the empty desert, against a high wind of sand. In an excess of colour, she almost performs like a dancer in front of the lens. Her red garment signals the globalized world, traversing through even the most arid plains.
6. Abdourahmane Sakaly – ‘Two girls Yé-Yé with glasses’, Bamako c. 1965
While conversations about Malian photography typically center on heavyweights Malik Sidibe and Seydou Keita, it’s important to acknowledge the significant contributions of their contemporaries to the country’s rich photographic heritage. One such figure is Abdourahmane Sakaly (1926-1988), a Senegalese photographer of Moroccan descent who arrived in Bamako in 1946. As part of the second generation of professionals, Sakaly began his photography career in 1955 and established his own studio the following year. Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, he gained widespread recognition for his portraiture, documenting social events and private functions for military and police officers, as well as other elites in the city, and producing class pictures for schoolchildren, advertisement prints, and images documenting accidents for the police. In fact, many residents of Bamako today regard Sakaly as the most prominent photographer in the city during this era.
7. Joe Penney – Malian boy with a homemade French flag, Jan 29, 2013
Captured in this poignant image is a young boy in Mali, proudly holding a French flag in the town of Douentza, following its liberation by French forces. Since Mali gained independence in 1960, the country has maintained a close but complex relationship with its former colonizer, marked by periods of cooperation, tension, and intervention.
In 2013, France launched Operation Serval (later changed to Operation Barkhane) aimed at clearing jihadists from northern urban strongholds. However, this evolved into a prolonged conflict with escalating violence across Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Despite continuous French military presence jihadist activities have persisted, and violence levels have soared, highlighting the failure of the operation, due to a combination of factors including, a misunderstanding of local conflict dynamics, serious political mistakes, and operational errors.
In 2021, a UN commission of inquiry revealed a range of human rights abuses committed between 2012 and 2018 by Malian government forces and militias amidst the ongoing conflict in the country, but also implicated fatal airstrikes carried out by French forces and highlighted abuses by UN peacekeepers. In 2022, following a major escalation in tensions between Paris and Bamako, including the expulsion of the French ambassador, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the withdrawal of French forces from Mali.
8. Sebastiao Salgado – Portrait of a blind Tuareg woman, 1985
Sebastião Salgado focuses on the adverse results of globalisation, with a particular interest in the grandeur of nature and the poor and the powerless. In photos that are both formal and unflinchingly documentary, he records his subjects in high-contrast analog black-and-white photographs. As he explains: “Each of my stories is about globalization and economic liberalization: a sample of the human condition on the planet today.” That condition is one of peril for those at the bottom of the global economy.
In this photograph, Salgado hones in on the taut skin and fierce gaze of this blind Tuareg woman. The lighting is such that she looks as though she’s disappearing into the shadow. Despite being blind she is communicating something urgent and powerful with her eyes. Her expression has made this photo one of Salgado’s most powerful.
9. Damon Winter – The great mosque, Djenné at sunrise
Mali boasts a long and illustrious history, characterized by the establishment of a major empire from around 1226 to 1670, encompassing present-day Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania, and parts of Niger and Burkina Faso.
This rich history is no more evident then in the UNESCO World Heritage old town of Djenné, captured here beautifully at sunrise by Damon Winter. This ancient town served as a vital market center, playing a crucial role in the trans-Saharan gold trade during the 15th and 16th centuries, and according to UNESCO, was also a significant hub for the dissemination of Islam. Djenné is renowned for its nearly 2,000 pre-Islamic mud houses, continuously inhabited since 250 B.C., and the iconic Great Mosque, one of Africa’s most revered religious monuments.
10. James P. Blair – Mopti, 1966
– Women dance to send off a friend on an airplane trip
National Geographic photographer James P. Blair has had an exhaustive career photographing for National Geographic. NatGeo was one of the first international magazines to introduce colour photography in a documentary context. Before this, colour photography had been largely established as a means to advertise. This snapshot captures the Malian love of music and dance, and heralds the dawn of cheaper airfares, connecting Mali to the rest of Africa, and to the rest of the world.
“Life is like a ballet performance – danced only once.“
– Malian Proverb
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Article updated March 2024