Visible Award at Hôtel de Ville, Paris 2019

On November 16th, 2019, the Public Jury of the fifth edition of the Visible Award, in collaboration with Lafayette Anticipations, took place at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris, gathering over 200 people in a debate around the ten shortlisted projects. The jury occupied for a day—once again and since 2013—the conceptual and physical space of an actual parliament, allowing the contents and the methodologies addressed in the projects to breathe new life into the democratic format of the parliament while highlighting the social transformation potential of such projects.

This temporary parliament was composed of artists, curators, experts, civil society organizers, activists, members of the general public from a multitude of backgrounds, and most importantly, a large group of students from visual arts and curatorial studies courses across Europe.
For this edition, we decided to invite a selection of students to be part of the parliament and involve them in the debate where they will actively engage.  A particular role is performed by the CuratorLab students from Konstfack in Stockholm, who acted as advocates for the ten shortlisted projects, after having spent several months preparing for the occasion.  

The recipient of the 2019 Visible Award was Blank Noise, a community of ‘Action Sheroes, Theyroes and Heroes’, individuals and citizens united to eradicate gender-based and sexual violence.

We are thrilled. The Visible Award is very significant to us. We are deeply grateful to be here. The visibility and community behind the Visible Award will take our vision to potential collaborators and reveal new possibilities. The vision for the #INeverAskForIt mission receives interest from allies, but the organisation needs support and capacity to be able to truly realise it. Violence against women is an urgent and deep-rooted concern in India and globally. We hear from women, girls, and persons across the world. Visible Award will enable us to collaborate, build solidarities, and affirm the role of methodologies, processes rooted in art practice to offer social transformation.

Jasmeen Patheja, Blank Noise

Initiated in 2003, Blank Noise ignites the idea that every person has the ability and potential to eradicate sexual and gender-based violence. Blank Noise interventions are designed to shift the fear-based relationship women have been taught to have with their cities. The collective creates a safe space for survivors to be heard. All of the Blank Noise is built on the lived experiences and insights of its community.

The Visible Temporary Parliament appreciated that the artistic project Blank Noise by Jasmeen Patheja has managed in its twelve years of existence to become a movement, rethinking the role of the artist horizontally and transforming the project participants into co-authors. Looking to 2023, the Blank Noise movement aims at a public art installation at India Gate in New Delhi, where ten thousand garments of victims of violence will form, in the words of the artist, a living museum through which to share the experience of violence collectively and create new alliance between social partners for a different future

Judith Wielander and Matteo Lucchetti