Post-colonial Africa was marked by great change. In the early 1960s in Mali, the excitement of this transition was captued in the photographs of Malick Sidibe.  Sidibe's photographs gave the youth of Mali an outlet to express their identity at a hopeful moment in their country's history.

 

His portraits of Bamako youth are striking examples of the optimism of the early postcolonial period in Mali. Sidibé also photographed people attending parties and celebrations at social clubs called grins.