When crossing borders, searching for safety, and navigating prejudices - whether in our country, our schools, or even in our own homes - there are often times when we wish to be invisible as a matter of self-preservation. At other times, we may feel utterly invisible – both unheard and unseen – resulting in a sense of feeling disrespected, ignored, or oppressed.
Gabrielle Senza's research on the circumstances around these moments involves one-to-one interviews, engaging social experiments, voluntary data collection, and cross-cultural storytelling. The results are woven into transdisciplinary works, including visual and performative art pieces and shared through public presentations, private one-to-one performances, and interactive online archives.
During her residency at ZK/U, the artist continued her creative research on invisibility. By setting up an Invisibility Lab space at the Gütermarkt, she was able to engage market visitors to participate in the research by filling out forms that ask them to describe if/when they have felt invisible and/or wished to be invisible, as well as to name some invisible things they depend on in their everyday life, and to offer an invisible thing to the Archive of Invisible Things.