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At the core of his practice is an exploration into how artistic and material forms, from textiles and photographs to archives and the built and natural environment, register histories of movement and transformation. Max examines how artists, writers, filmmakers, and cultural practitioners mobilize these forms as modes of cultural and political imagination.
In his scholarship, Max researches global postcolonial modernisms, with a particular focus on his home country of Guinea and the cultural revolution led by the country's first president, Ahmed Sékou Touré, from 1958-1984. Taking material culture as a site where aesthetic, political, and economic histories converge, his research traces how makers and intellectuals articulated new visions of cultural autonomy during the independence era and mid-to-late twentieth century. His broader interests span postcolonial Africa, the Black Atlantic, and transnational cultural production across the Global South.
His thesis at Princeton University, , examined indigo textile traditions in Guinea, tracing their historical, economic, and aesthetic trajectories, and was awarded the Lawrence Stone and Shelby Cullom Davis Thesis Prize as well as the Henry Richardson Labouisse 1926 Prize. His research and writing have appeared in Tender Photo and Artsy, and he has presented at the 19th Triennial Symposium on African Art (ACASA) at the Art Institute of Chicago, George Washington University, and Princeton University.
Max has curated and contributed to exhibitions and curatorial projects in collaboration with museums, galleries, and art spaces across Africa, the Gulf, Europe, and North America. In 2025, he served on the jury for the Southnord UP NEXT Prize and curated the exhibition of the winning artist, Viola Nimuhamya, in Stockholm. He has served as Curatorial Assistant at Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris on a major exhibition set to open in October 2026. He is currently an ARAK Curatorial Fellow and is curating an exhibition at the University of Johannesburg FADA Gallery, opening in February 2026.
In his own creative practice, Max contends with themes of memory and migration through writing, installation, and film. He has presented work in several group exhibitions, including Sound Images organized by Tina Campt, Exceed Your Vision curated by James Welling, and Livity curated by Azariah Jones. In 2025, Max was named the inaugural recipient of the Southnord Residency Programme Award, in partnership with the Lusaka Contemporary Art Center.
Max is currently developing , a research library and reading room in Conakry, Guinea dedicated to comparative art histories and critical theory. He holds an A.B. in History, African Studies, and Visual Arts from Princeton University.
Max lives between Conakry, Dakar, and Stockholm.
maxdiallojakobsen@gmail.com
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