Akinbode Akinbiyi’s photographic practice is one of excavation. A cultural, political and sentimental excavation; the excavation of something that is omnipresent yet still succeeds in eluding attention; something approaching duende or the soul of the everyday.
For more than five decades now, Akinbiyi has made it a principle to return to certain cities, gauging their vibe in a journey with neither map nor discipline. In the Biennale Arte 2026, he presents the resulting excavations from three cities: Berlin, where he lives; Bamako; and Dakar. In the series Ndakaru (Dakar), he listens to the city via street vendors, horse carts, dogs on the beach, trees, scrawled inscriptions. In Bamako, we browse with him through marriage ceremonies, watch kids playing table football, and listen to the river flow through the city. A recurring theme is photography itself in the public imagination: a wedding photographer at work, people gathered outside Malick Sidibé’s studio, signs advertising a passport-photo kiosk.
In all three cities, Akinbiyi invites us to peel back the layers of these spaces, beyond primary and even secondary strata of sight, in search of a mysterious and visceral power.
—Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Nkidung
