Interested in portraits, as well as in social and cultural photography, Fatoumata Diabaté’s images focus on women and young generations in Mali. Oral tradition, beliefs and transmission are at the core of her artistic expression. In her portraits, everyday objects, improvised masks and fabrics become the symbolic vehicles of a shared living memory that is constantly reinvented.
Fatoumata Diabaté has also developed a project called "Le studio photo de la rue" (The street photo studio), which recreates a nomadic, urban studio in the vein of Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta. By claiming her artistic heritage, she pays tribute, with humour and lightness, to the Malian photographic repertoire.
After studying photography at the Promo Femmes audiovisual training centre and at the CFP in Bamako from 2002 to 2004, Fatoumata Diabaté worked as a technician in the silver laboratory until 2009. In 2014 and 2015, she was awarded a scholarship at the ENSA in Nancy. Fatoumata Diabaté has taken part in the Bamako Biennial of Photography (2009, 2011), the Voies Off Festival in Arles (2018), the Dakar Biennial (2018) and the La Gacilly Photo Festival (2017). Since December 2017, she is president of the association of female photographers in Mali.
In 2021, she is selected as a laureate of the Photographic Residencies of the Musée du Quai Branly. In 2022, she has been shortlisted for the first edition of the James Barnor prize.