Deze video-installatie van kunstenares Bianca Baldi onderzoekt de thema's van ras, identiteit en voorbijgaan. Geïnspireerd door biomimicry en haar eigen familiegeschiedenis, toont 'Play-White' de complexiteit van raciale identiteiten en de constante zoektocht naar acceptatie en erkenning. Met gelaagde visualisaties en momenten van discretie nodigt dit kunstwerk uit tot diepe reflectie op aanwezigheid en ontwijking. Een indringende ervaring die de grenzen van zwart-wit representaties doorbreekt.

Rooted in the apartheid era, the racist term “play-white” connotes a black or mixed-race person who lived as a white person. South African artist Bianca Baldi draws from research on biomimicry – for instance, the use of rapid adaptive camouflage by cephalopods – and her own family history to reflect on racial passing and the instability of racial identities. She also looks to literary precedents, such as Nella Larsen’s novel ‘Passing’ (1929). In this way, her video installation ‘Play-White’ alternates between layers of visualisation and moments of discretion in order to explore questions of presence and evasion, beyond their broadly accepted representation in black and white.