Angela Tiatia Invisibleness

Women of colour experience an everyday paradox – being simultaneously invisible and highly visible. In mainstream film, television, politics and art, the coloured woman is largely invisible. Barely glimpsed. This leads to a public who are unfamiliar with her.

Paradoxically, this unfamiliarity makes her highly visible in her everyday life. She sticks out. However, it is not the person that is noticed but her features, which seem peculiar – the texture of her hair, the colour of her skin. She is objectified as a dehumanised collection of oddities. Invisibleness is about the experience of not being seen as a complete person.

Angela Tiatia, 2017