Ibrahima Thima

Ibrahima Thiam was born in Saint-Louis, Senegal, in 1976. Self-taught, he is interested in questions of memory, archives, African orality and myths and legends. Ibrahima collects images. Some of these, taken from his family archives, play an important part in shaping his imagination. Since 2019, he has also been developing a theme that tends to highlight the divinities of the Lebu communities, and their universe: Maam Coumba Bang, Maam Njaré, Ndeuk Ndaour Mbaye and Maam Coumba Castel.

Ibrahima's solo exhibitions have been significant, most recently Younou ndokhe, la voix de l'eau at OH GALLERY as part of the OFF programme at the Dakar Biennale in 2024, Portrait Vintage at Georgetown University in the United States and D'une rive à l'autre at Raw Material Company in Dakar in 2020. His work was also selected for the Biennale de la Photographie de Bamako in 2015, a recognition of his place on the international photography scene.

Ibrahima Thiam has taken part in a number of major group exhibitions: Portraiture and Archives in African Photography in 2025 at the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, Talking Objects Lab in Berlin and Dakar in 2024 and Hot Flux - Modern and Contemporary Photography in Taiwan and Africa at the Tainan Art Museum in 2023.

His presence at the Dakar Biennale in 2022, through the TEG BËT GËSTU GI project at the Musée de l'IFAN, testifies to the importance of his work in Senegal's contemporary artistic panorama. He has also exhibited in prestigious venues such as The View From Here at the Zuccaire Gallery in Stony Brook, New York, and Perspectives contemporaines du Sénégal at the CVA Gallery at Kent University, Ohio, USA.

His work can be found in numerous institutional collections, including the Stanley Museum of Art Collection (Iowa, USA), the Chazen Museum of Art (Wisconsin, USA), the Kent University of Visual Art Collection (USA), or more recently the one of Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, underlining the international scope of his work.