Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man(1952) is a complex, layered story of an anonymous black man who tries to find his way in early 20thcentury America. This existential bildungsroman is about the search for identity in a society that tries to make the individual assume all kinds of roles. The protagonist feels invisible because people around him refuse or are incapable of seeing his true self. This is played out against a backdrop of a racist society in which the main character struggles with contrasting visions and stereotypes of what a black man is or how he should behave.

Invisible Man touches on themes that are still topical today, also in the Netherlands. Who is invisible in our society? Who has history made invisible? The power structures that dominate processes of (in)visibility are omnipresent but do we recognize them?

In this exhibition artists take a critical look at the themes of Invisible Man in relation to our contemporary society. The exhibition wants to stimulate a decolonial dialogue and create new concepts about how we can break the conventions and stereotypes that still control our actions and thinking. Decolonial means that one thinks about alternative ways to organize society; it dismisses current structures that are still influenced by colonial ways of thinking. This sometimes feels uncomfortable or challenging – we feel less safe when conventions fall away. But it creates room for new possibilities and stimulates discussion about an alternative future.