With Mansoor Adayfi, Hiba Alansari, Moath Al-Alwi, Sami Al Haj, Lucinda Devlin, Johanna-Maria Fritz, Mohammed el Gharani, Roopa Gogineni, Johannah Herr, Jonas Höschl, Šejla Kamerić, Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, Rabih Mroué, Kresiah Mukwazhi, Jean Gabriel Périot, Thomson & Craighead, Total Refusal, Helena Uambembe and Emmanuel Van der Auwera
Curated by Theresa Deichert, Dr. Larissa-Diana Fuhrmann and Dr. Nadia Ismail
Omnipresent in the media and seemingly endless, warfare shapes our visual habits and dominates public perception. Beyond the starkly visible violence, such as the brutal destruction of buildings and cultural heritage, images of civilian casualties, or pictures of displaced persons and refugees, this exhibition also focuses on the often invisible dimensions of violence. Structural, psychological, and gender-based violence, particularly against women and minorities, as well as the resulting trauma and emotional suffering, frequently remain hidden. Ideological and religious hatred, passed down through generations and disproportionately affecting women, is often unseen or deliberately suppressed. Shame and societal stigma frequently protect perpetrators, while the consequences for those affected are profound and long-lasting.
(In)Visibility of Violence seeks to explore these unequal power structures and the visual regimes that shape the perception of violence: What societal, political, and media mechanisms make violence visible or invisible? How is violence documented, instrumentalized, or censored? What creative and artistic approaches can render violence perceptible? How do artists employ strategies such as alienation, censorship, documentation, or spectacularization to depict or obscure violence?
The exhibition is a collaboration with the Research Center “Transformations of Political Violence” (TraCe), which began in October 2024 with the dialogue panel “Depictions of Excessive Use of Force – Between Disturbance and Attraction” at Kunsthalle. The exhibition will be accompanied by a journal published jointly by the KUNSTHALLE GIESSEN and scholars from the TraCe Research Center.
