Curator Talk: Hamdia Traoré’s “Des marabouts de Djenné”

The storied city of Djenné, a center of Islamic learning, study, and scholarship since the twelfth century, is the hometown of Bamako-based photographer Hamdia Traoré (b. 1992, Mali). The thirty portraits in Traore’s series Des marabouts de Djenné (Marabouts of Jenne) reflect his intimate connections to the city’s people and deep history. Learned and devout, marabouts teach in Djenné’s over 50 Qur’anic schools, offer spiritual guidance, and treat ailments through their knowledge of the Qur’an.

Kathleen Bickford Berzock, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs, will give an exhibition overview of . Berzock will discuss Traoré’s series and its rapport with works by an earlier generation of Malian portrait photographers.

Participation level – medium, participants are encouraged to share thoughts and questions during the talk.

Programs are open to all, on a first-come first-served basis. RSVPs are not required, but are appreciated.

About the Speaker

Kathleen Bickford Berzock is Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art, Professor of Practice in Northwestern’s Department of Anthropology, and affiliated faculty in the Department of Art History and the Program of African Studies. Berzock was a member of the collaborative curatorial team for the exhibition Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak/Chicagoland (2025). She curated the award-winning exhibition Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture, and Exchange across Medieval Saharan Africa, and edited its companion publication and multilingual app. Berzock is co-editor with Christa Clarke of Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display. From 1995 – 2013 she was curator of African art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Berzock received her PhD from Indiana University.

Image credit: Hamdia Traoré (Malian, born 1992), Alphamoye Traoré, Marabout et Maître Coranique. Djenné-Algassouba (Alphamoye Traoré, Marabout and Qur’anic Teacher. Jenne-Algassouba), from the series Des Marabouts de Djenné (Marabouts of Jenne), September 2018, printed 2023. Pigment print, 15 5/8 × 23 11/16 in. Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Irwin and Andra S. Press Collection Endowment Fund purchase.

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