Max Diallo Jakobsen is one of our 2025-2026 Curatorial Fellowship Recipients

Max Diallo Jakobsen is one of our 2025-2026 Curatorial Fellowship Recipients

The ARAK Collection is thrilled to announce that Max Diallo Jakobsen is one of the recipients of our Curatorial Fellowships for 2025-2026. Diallo Jakobsen will present his exhibition at the University of Johannesburg’s FADA Gallery, South Africa, in 2026. 

About Diallo Jakobsen

Diallo Jakobsen is a writer, historian, and artist whose work explores the intersections of materiality, memory, and cultural history. His practice moves between text, textile, and image, drawing on historical research and artistic experimentation to articulate a sensibility that is both personal and globally resonant.

Born to a Guinean mother and Swedish father, Diallo Jakobsen was raised between Conakry, Dakar, and Stockholm. This transnational upbringing shaped his understanding of history, material culture, and creative practice, grounding his work in multiple geographies and perspectives. He graduated from Princeton University with a B.A in History, African Studies & Visual Arts. As a student, he served as president of the African Students Association and was a founding member of the Black Arts Collective. His leadership and advocacy were recognized with several honors, including the Student Leader of the Year Award, African Vanguard Award, and the Spirit of Princeton Award.

As a researcher and curator, Diallo Jakobsen specialises in modern and contemporary African art, with a focus on material, cultural and political histories. His undergraduate thesis at Princeton, BLUEPRINTS, examined indigo textile traditions in Guinea, tracing their historical, economic, and aesthetic trajectories. This work was awarded the Henry Richardson Labouisse 1926 Prize, and he was invited to present his research at the 19th Triennial Symposium on African Art in Chicago.

Since graduating, Diallo Jakobsen has primarily been based in Guinea, supported by the Labouisse Prize, where he has conducted research with artists and artisans across the country. From his research studio in Conakry, he works closely with artists and cultural workers to lay the foundation for Guinea’s future artistic landscape. He has several forthcoming projects, including a group exhibition scheduled for fall 2025. His efforts focus on creating sustainable platforms for artistic exchange, linking Guinea’s emerging art scene with neighboring countries and global networks.

Concurrently, Diallo Jakobsen has expanded his art and curatorial practice internationally. In 2024, with the support of a Projects for Peace Grant, he co-led IMAG(IN)E, a summer film photography program in New York that introduced high school students from The Bronx to the Black photographic tradition through artists like Malick Sidibé, Deana Lawson, and LaToya Ruby Frazier. He also collaborated on Juan Arango Palacios' solo show at Galerie Revel in Bordeaux and contributed writing to Samuel Nnorom’s participation at Art Antwerp.

This year, Diallo Jakobsen was named the inaugural recipient of the Southnord Residency Programme Award, in partnership with the Lusaka Contemporary Art Center. He also served on the jury for the Southnord UP NEXT 2025 Prize and will curate the exhibition of the winning artist in Stockholm this September. Currently, he is assisting the curatorial team at Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris for an exhibition set to open in 2026.

About the project

Diallo Jakobsen's curatorial project explores how contemporary African artists in the ARAK Collection engage with the afterlives and material traces of discarded objects. Through techniques such as stitching, layering, collaging, and sculpting, these artists treat their materials as collaborators and co-authors. The exhibition will examine how they retool the physical remnants of modernity and the quotidian, recasting them as instruments of critique and reflection.

This project marks a departure from previous ARAK exhibitions. While past presentations have primarily focused on painting and two-dimensional works, this exhibition brings the Collection’s sculptural, mixed-media, and materially experimental holdings to the forefront.

About the ARAK Collection Curatorial Fellowship programme:

We invite curators to research the Collection, offering an opportunity to curate exhibitions that highlight contemporary African art. Fellows are supported from concept development to the final staging of their exhibitions, culminating in a meaningful contribution to art discourse.

The Curatorial Fellow is expected to research the collection with the intention of curating an exhibition and writing the exhibition catalogue at the end of the residency. After in-depth research, a curatorial project is submitted to be approved by the ARAK Collection Advisory Committee.

The Fellowship Program was created to support the ARAK Collection’s Mission of developing and supporting young and mid-career artists, curators and writers through promoting curatorial research, publications and exhibitions of the Collection’s works. The exhibitions, developed and produced by the ARAK Collection, aspire to be impactful on a global scale and are all associated with relevant public programming.

About the ARAK Collection:

The ARAK Collection is an independent, Qatari-based initiative that aims to promote, through exhibitions, publications, research and educational programs, Contemporary African Art and Artists.

The collection is a resource for Artists, Curators and Researchers. It presents travelling exhibitions, lends artwork to regional and international organisations, institutions and museums, and produces print and online publications, and impactful public programs associated with the exhibitions it produces and hosts. The ARAK Collection is a public platform to foster critical dialogue around contemporary art practices with a focus on African Artists and educational programmes that have an educational and developmental impact on the local community.

The collection consists of paintings, works on paper, and prints from more than 300 young and mid-career artists from African countries.

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