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.
Inspired by Freud's topographical model of the mind
Section Brain: The Basis of Human Action | Ongoing Series
Drawing Cycles & Conceptual Framework
Where the general Artist Statement describes society as a brain, this section zooms in on the physical and mental brain itself: the absolute source of all our feeling, thinking, and acting. Within her multidisciplinary practice, the extensive drawing cycles of Hilde NIJS form the very foundation of her intellectual and visual inquiry. Deeply inspired by Sigmund Freud’s topographical model of the mind, the Brains series positions itself at the fascinating intersection of human consciousness, spatial psychology, and existential philosophy. Here, the material structure of consciousness is dissected, and the landscapes of the mind unfold; it is the place where physiological processes merge with the complexity of the human psyche.
This zone exposes the neurological foundations that govern our choices, traumas, drives, and societal structures. Translating these complex psychoanalytic and literary frameworks through her boundless imagination and a pure visual quality, NIJS shapes layered, textured artworks on paper. Within this conceptual environment, series such as The Psychoanalytic Awareness, The Riddle of Thinking Humanity, We are our Brain, Messengers of the Subconscious Mind, Sceneries of the Unconscious, Das Es, Das Ich & das Über-ich, Messengers of the UCS, take their definitive, autonomous form. While brain research constantly delivers new insights, this extensive body of 'work on paper' provides the ultimate freedom to explore the mysterious territory of the human mind. It offers the visitor an innovative, artistic experience.
©2026 Hilde NIJS. All Right Reserved.