Mame-Diarra Niang was born in 1982, in Lyon, France and lives in Paris. She is a self-taught artist and photographer.
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Her work explores the concept of the ‘plasticity of territory’. Niang’s first mid-career survey, Self as a Forgotten Monument, currently takes place at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, South Africa. Previous solo shows include Sama Guent Guii, Stevenson, Johannesburg (2022); The Citadel: a trilogy | Call me when you get there at Galeria Lume, São Paulo (2021); Léthé, as part of Rhe, at Stevenson Amsterdam (2021) and Call Me When You Get There, Cape Town (2020); Black Hole, Stevenson, Johannesburg (2017), and At the Wall, Stevenson, Johannesburg (2014).
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She has taken part in group exhibitions including Glitch: The Art of Interference, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany (2023); UNBOUND: PERFORMANCE AS RUPTURE at the Julia Stoschek Foundation, Berlin (2023); Thinking Historically in the Present, the 15th Sharjah Biennale, UAE (2023); Currency, the 8th Triennial of Photography Hamburg (2022); DAK'ART OFF, 14th Dakar Biennale, Senegal (2022); Shifting Dialogues: Photography from The Walther Collection, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (2022); The Art of Living, Fotofestival Naarden, the Netherlands (2021); Movin'Grounds, 38CC, Delft, the Netherlands (2020); Pictures from Another Wall, De Pont Museum, the Netherlands (2020); Travesías atlánticas, the 4th Montevideo Biennial (2019); Recent Histories / Contemporary African Photography and Video Art from The Walther Collection at Huis Marseille, the Netherlands (2018); Affective Affinities, the 33rd Bienal de São Paulo (2018); Strange Attractors, a curatorial publication project launched at the 10th Berlin Biennale (2018); O Triângulo Atlântico, the 11th Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2018); Deconstructed Spaces, Surveyed Memories at the 11th Rencontres de Bamako (2017); Recent Histories - New African Photography at the Walther Collection in Neu-Ulm, Germany (2017); the 12th Dakar Biennale (2016); Armory Focus: African Perspectives – Spotlighting Artistic Practices of Global Contemporaries at The Armory Show, New York (2016); The Lay of the Land: New Photography from Africa, The Walther Collection Project Space, New York (2015); Nine Artists at Stevenson, Cape Town (2015); 11th Dakar Biennale in 2014, and Le Piéton de Dakar at the Institut Français of Dakar in 2013.
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Niang's first artist book, The Citadel: a trilogy, was released in 2022 by Mack Publishers as a three-volume edition, articulating her 'personal but analytic relationship with place'.