Dior Thiam

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Artist statement

My artistic practice – ranging from painting to photography and installation as well as writing and sound – revolves around untold histories and the relation between beauty and violence. Drawing inspiration from historical events and occurrences, from poetry, prose and personal experiences, my work raises questions around memory, remembrance and commemoration. The processing of archival material (found objects, sounds, images, image excerpts, texts, text fragments) opens up questions about the locality of knowledge, on the history of colonial collections and museal practices. Where and how is knowledge created, transmitted and kept? Throughout a process-based approach of layering, interweaving, fragmenting, collecting and reassembling I extract, reframe and re/arrange seemingly disparate pieces of research. By visualising a multiplicity of perspectives, I disclose the act of seeing itself as part of the creative process: intentional and subjective. I play with notions of voyeurism, desire, nostalgia and sentimentality, constantly nudging the viewer to position themselves anew to what and how they are seeing. I think of art as the never-finished archive: diasporic in its nature. A network that is consistently being expanded.

Artwork