ADOLESCENCE
A coming of age visual story reflecting on time, identity, and the threshold between childhood and adulthood
For Malick Bodian, the richness and singularity of African stories act as a form of time travel, a way to reconnect with his roots and revisit the landscapes of memory. After his 2024 debut Voyage Temporel, a visual elegy exploring the fluidity of time and the act of traveling through it, Bodian returns to familiar thematic ground but shifts his focus: from abstraction to the body, from concept to presence. Adolescence, his latest project, unfolds as an emotional atlas spanning different regions on the African continent from Rwanda, Kenya, Gambia, to his native Senegal. Here, youth is rendered with a restrained, almost painterly precision, capturing the fleeting moments that define the transition from childhood to adulthood. Bodian traces this pivotal stage of life with sensitivity, exploring the quiet poetry of everyday gestures: a first dive into the sea, the solitary walk to school, the endless hours spent in the company of friends. Each frame reflects a careful attention to light, atmosphere, and the small, intimate rhythms of daily life. The artist’s own experience resonates throughout the work. Having moved to Europe at thirteen, the very threshold of his adolescence, he undertakes, through these images, a journey backward in time, seeking to reclaim an interrupted childhood and, through photography, to reconstruct a personal rite of passage. His lens negotiates the tension between memory and presence, between what is lost and what can be imagined, producing a narrative that is both deeply personal and universally resonant. Presented on November 10th, 2025, during Paris Photo Week at the Librairie 7L on rue de Lille, Adolescence is not only a reflection on time and identity, on the threshold separating childhood from adulthood, but also an exploration of Africa as a place of memory, identity, and emotion.
Despite the calm suggested by its title, Adolescence is a restless, multilayered work. Writer and curator Olivia Anani, a contributor to the publication, observes: “The beauty of adolescence perhaps lies in those remnants of childhood that sometimes blur the boundary between reality and fiction. For in Africa we are, viscerally, a continent of invocations, of conjurations, of projections, of manifestations. A land of spells, of panegyric verses, of mythical tales shared by moonlight. Things that are because they are told.” Bodian’s photographs reflect this complexity, allowing traces of fantasy, memory, and cultural storytelling to coexist alongside the intimate realism of youth. The universality of Bodian’s theme invites reflection. In these images, viewers may discover fragments of their own histories, moments of tenderness, and echoes of formative experiences. Each photograph acts as a voice: it mirrors the artist while granting his subjects space to assert their own identities. Together, these moments construct a collective narrative that is at once artistically precise, emotionally moving, and culturally resonant. With Adolescence, Malick Bodian engages with time, memory, and contemporary African identity, celebrating the richness of the continent’s stories while reaffirming his singular vision in the international art scene. The work stands as a testament to the power of photography to map the inner landscapes of experience, to honor transitions, and to render visible the quiet poetry of becoming.
Find more information on Adolescence here
A coming of age visual story reflecting on time, identity, and the threshold between childhood and adulthood
For Malick Bodian, the richness and singularity of African stories act as a form of time travel, a way to reconnect with his roots and revisit the landscapes of memory. After his 2024 debut Voyage Temporel, a visual elegy exploring the fluidity of time and the act of traveling through it, Bodian returns to familiar thematic ground but shifts his focus: from abstraction to the body, from concept to presence. Adolescence, his latest project, unfolds as an emotional atlas spanning different regions on the African continent from Rwanda, Kenya, Gambia, to his native Senegal. Here, youth is rendered with a restrained, almost painterly precision, capturing the fleeting moments that define the transition from childhood to adulthood. Bodian traces this pivotal stage of life with sensitivity, exploring the quiet poetry of everyday gestures: a first dive into the sea, the solitary walk to school, the endless hours spent in the company of friends. Each frame reflects a careful attention to light, atmosphere, and the small, intimate rhythms of daily life. The artist’s own experience resonates throughout the work. Having moved to Europe at thirteen, the very threshold of his adolescence, he undertakes, through these images, a journey backward in time, seeking to reclaim an interrupted childhood and, through photography, to reconstruct a personal rite of passage. His lens negotiates the tension between memory and presence, between what is lost and what can be imagined, producing a narrative that is both deeply personal and universally resonant. Presented on November 10th, 2025, during Paris Photo Week at the Librairie 7L on rue de Lille, Adolescence is not only a reflection on time and identity, on the threshold separating childhood from adulthood, but also an exploration of Africa as a place of memory, identity, and emotion.
Despite the calm suggested by its title, Adolescence is a restless, multilayered work. Writer and curator Olivia Anani, a contributor to the publication, observes: “The beauty of adolescence perhaps lies in those remnants of childhood that sometimes blur the boundary between reality and fiction. For in Africa we are, viscerally, a continent of invocations, of conjurations, of projections, of manifestations. A land of spells, of panegyric verses, of mythical tales shared by moonlight. Things that are because they are told.” Bodian’s photographs reflect this complexity, allowing traces of fantasy, memory, and cultural storytelling to coexist alongside the intimate realism of youth. The universality of Bodian’s theme invites reflection. In these images, viewers may discover fragments of their own histories, moments of tenderness, and echoes of formative experiences. Each photograph acts as a voice: it mirrors the artist while granting his subjects space to assert their own identities. Together, these moments construct a collective narrative that is at once artistically precise, emotionally moving, and culturally resonant. With Adolescence, Malick Bodian engages with time, memory, and contemporary African identity, celebrating the richness of the continent’s stories while reaffirming his singular vision in the international art scene. The work stands as a testament to the power of photography to map the inner landscapes of experience, to honor transitions, and to render visible the quiet poetry of becoming.
Find more information on Adolescence here