Dior Thiam is a multidisciplinary artist. Throughout broadly different mediums, she explores untold histories, exoticism and the specific historical knowledge held by social and individual bodies.
Drawing inspiration from historical events and occurrences, from poetry, prose and personal experiences, her work raises questions around the localities of knowledge as well as memory and remembrance. Throughout a process-based approach of layering, interweaving, fragmenting, collecting and reassembling she extracts and re/arranges seemingly disparate pieces of research to form new frameworks of meaning. By visualising a multiplicity of perspectives, the artist discloses the act of seeing itself as part of the creative process: intentional and subjective. Through her work the artist deliberately challenges the viewer in their relation to the image. She plays with notions of voyeurism, desire, nostalgia and sentimentality nudging the viewer to position themselves anew to what and how they are seeing.
After starting to study philosophy and social sciences at Humboldt University Berlin in 2012, she turned to painting, enrolling at Leipzig Academy of Fine Arts in 2015. From 2019 to 2020 she was a guest student at Institute for Art in Context at University of Fine Arts Berlin where she currently studies sculpture and performance with Jimmy Robert.
Among others, her work has been showcased in a number of international group exhibitions and publications, including shows at Galérie Cécile Fakhoury in Abidjan, Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg and the African Diaspora Art Museum in Atlanta as well as in multiple collaborations with Savvy Contemporary and Archive Sites/Books.
She has won the BBA Artist Prize 2023 and will be represented in the international exhibition at the Dakar Biennale 2024. She is currently part of Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt.
Dior lives and works in Berlin.
Dior Thiam is a multidisciplinary artist. Throughout broadly different mediums, she explores untold histories, exoticism and the specific historical knowledge held by social and individual bodies.
Drawing inspiration from historical events and occurrences, from poetry, prose and personal experiences, her work raises questions around the localities of knowledge as well as memory and remembrance. Throughout a process-based approach of layering, interweaving, fragmenting, collecting and reassembling she extracts and re/arranges seemingly disparate pieces of research to form new frameworks of meaning. By visualising a multiplicity of perspectives, the artist discloses the act of seeing itself as part of the creative process: intentional and subjective. Through her work the artist deliberately challenges the viewer in their relation to the image. She plays with notions of voyeurism, desire, nostalgia and sentimentality nudging the viewer to position themselves anew to what and how they are seeing.
After starting to study philosophy and social sciences at Humboldt University Berlin in 2012, she turned to painting, enrolling at Leipzig Academy of Fine Arts in 2015. From 2019 to 2020 she was a guest student at Institute for Art in Context at University of Fine Arts Berlin where she currently studies sculpture and performance with Jimmy Robert.
Among others, her work has been showcased in a number of international group exhibitions and publications, including shows at Galérie Cécile Fakhoury in Abidjan, Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg and the African Diaspora Art Museum in Atlanta as well as in multiple collaborations with Savvy Contemporary and Archive Sites/Books.
She has won the BBA Artist Prize 2023 and will be part of the international selection for the Dakar Biennale 2024. She is currently part of Goldrausch Fellowship Program.
Dior lives and works in Berlin.