Gender Talk: Unspoken / Outspoken
GENDER EMANCIPATION | 2016
Installation & ongoing series
Discipline: Monumental total installation / Interactive installation
Context: Part of the large-scale factory installation 'Identity Rooms, Walking into my Artwork, scale 1/1' (2015-2019)
Methodology: Research-based practice / Socially engaged art (Social practice)
Concept & Vision
Gender Talk: Unspoken / Outspoken is a museum-grade, monumental total installation functioning as an open space designed to radically open up the urgent public debate surrounding broader gender issues. The work was created exactly 10 years ago, in 2016, as a specific 'Gender Room total installation' within the large-scale factory installation 'Identity Rooms, Walking into my Artwork, scale 1/1' (2015-2019), out of the profound conviction that every individual has the right to their own identity and their own safe space.
In the socio-cultural climate of the time, the word ‘Gender’ was by no means a mainstream term; it was rarely used in popular media, and a deep societal discomfort and an enforced silence surrounded the entire issue (Unspoken). The project stood as a groundbreaking, innovative, and avant-garde intervention that resolutely broke open prevailing taboos: from the necessity of women's emancipation and the fight against partner violence (against both women and men), to homofobia, child abuse, and violence targeting trans individuals and all genders within the LGBTQIA+ community.
To bring these heavy voices forcefully to the fore (Outspoken), the themes were deliberately approached with a playful angle and a sharp, witty twist. Not a political pamphlet, but the power of a light-hearted counter-play. This was a deliberate, barrier-breaking strategy: by welcoming the audience in an accessible, almost cheerful manner, the threshold surrounding this unfamiliar and uncomfortable topic was dismantled.
Visitors became far more receptive and open to engaging in genuine dialogue. From this welcoming opening, the experience could organically shift towards the serious and raw reality of the matter. Rooted in a long-term, research-based practice, this socially engaged work shatters the silence surrounding abuse and physical or psychological violence across all relationships, orientations, and genders. It opens up a necessary and activist discourse on safety, power structures, and equal representation.
Spatial Design & Materiality
The physical setup was concretely constructed as a 'Room', a tangible space within the Identity Rooms. It forms a flexible, museum-grade capsule conceived not to be static, but to grow organically according to the specific space in which it stands and the ongoing evolution in time surrounding these issues. Whereas it was originally created to break through an urgent silence, the work reacts today to shifts in societal acceptance and the current debate. It is an environment where the visitor can actually step inside, absorb the entirety of the space, and directly engage in confrontation and active dialogue with other visitors. It is only when the playful element recedes that the work organically transitions into the raw reality.
The work's materiality plays a vital, articulate role. The tactile dimension of the materials used—the raw structures and the spatial constructions—possesses its own active agency. Rather than standing as merely decorative elements within the space, these components claim their own physical presence and guide the sensory and emotional journey of the visitor.
Interaction & Visceral impact
The installation is built on the fundamental premise that the artistic quality and the visual power of an artwork must be at least equal to—if not many times greater than—the heavy thematic weight underneath. In socially engaged art, it is an absolute rule that the subject matter must never be used as artwashing. Only through an uncompromising mastery of visual materials and a spatial practice does the gravity of the cargo remain intact, allowing the autonomous visual language to retain its eloquent power. The work refuses to default into a pure political pamphlet or a didactic gesture; an important social issue is not weaponised here as a superficial lampoon filled with one-liners.
The arrangement within the Identity Rooms functions as an interactive installation that is only fully completed by the physical presence, movement, and action of the visitor. Through the synthesis of tactile materials, raw textual fragments, and physical barriers, an environment is generated that leaves a profound, visceral impact; a deep, instinctive gut feeling that registers long before the intellect can fully analyse the heavy weight of the themes. The artwork achieves a necessary, powerful disruption of our societal gaze. The installation thus functions as a deeply felt, monumental artwork that compels the spectator into a substantial and respectful dialogue.
©2016-2026 Hilde NIJS. All rights reserved.
3D-Filament Sculptures
Discipline: High-tech 3D filament sculptures / Contemporary hybrid art
Context: An ongoing series of autonomous and integrated sculptures functioning as a technological and material counterpoint to the experimental materials and the unorthodox implementation of readymades within the artist’s broader oeuvre, applied among others within the monumental total installation Le Cavalier des Pensées.
Methodology: Manual spatial sculpting / Direct spatial pen-painting / Poetic material transformation
I. Concept and Vision
The series of 3D filament sculptures departs from a deliberate artistic friction between the tangible, material world and the encroaching technological artificiality. While in previous conceptual projects the emphasis lies on an ongoing experimentation with tangible matter and repurposed readymades, this series does not simply sever those ties with the past, but redefines them. This manifests itself directly within the monumental total installation Le Cavalier des Pensées (inspired by the philosophy of Leopold Flam), and other installations in which these 3D filament sculptures are integrated, but equally so within the smaller, standalone creations. The work thus reflects the inevitable evolution and transition from a tangible, organic living world to the high-tech reality of today.
Yet within this rupture lies an intriguing, poetic duality. The implementation of this modern, industrial technique is not merely a cold message about the artificial society. Precisely by entirely taming the technology and pulling it away from its original, rigid function, a transformation occurs whereby the synthetic material is stripped of its mass-produced character, gaining a fragile, almost organic poetry. The sculptures are built from skeletal, weightless lines that balance between history and the future.
Spatial Design and Materiality
The core of this series lies in a purely manual, intuitive, and experimental creation process. No computer or automated filament machine is involved; the sculptures are constructed completely by hand using a 3D filament pen. The pen functions as a hand-held brush that heats the plastic thread, allowing the artist to truly paint and sculpt in mid-air. This is by no means an easy medium to master. It is an highly complex process that requires profound expertise and a flawless hand control to force the liquid, hot matter – defiant of established rules – directly into the space into stable, layered structures.
The project strictly utilises 100% biodegradable 3D printing material that is completely odourless, eco-friendly, and non-toxic. The final forms are the result of a boundary-pushing engagement with various techniques, where traditional acrylic paint is combined in an unconventional manner with the manually drawn lines of the pen. This creates an entirely new, transparent, and futuristic skeleton.
Interaction and Visceral Impact
In comparison to the artist’s broader portfolio, these works introduce a sharp, disruptive tension. By juxtaposing the specific material use of the filament directly against the deeply tactile, organic nature of the monumental paintings and the expressive ceramic work within the oeuvre, a profound conceptual friction is achieved.
The 3D filament sculptures confront the viewer with a fine, open linework that unlocks the space in a weightless manner. In the larger work, this forces the visitor into a layered viewing experience: one looks through the transparent, synthetic lines of the sculptures at the rest of the installation. This interplay creates an incisive visual and visceral impact. The structures balance on the razor-thin border between the artificial and the natural, compelling the viewer into a direct, aesthetic reflection on the technological transformation and the evolution of our living and thinking world.
©2023-2026 Hilde NIJS. All Rights Reserved.
