The exhibition Invisible Play presents a new installation by Anna Kakhiani, developed within Holding Grief: Engaging Trauma Through Contemporary Art, a research project led by Anja Novak at the University of Amsterdam.
The work explores play as a space of agency in children’s experiences of war and displacement. Through play, children construct scenarios, establish rules, assign roles and determine outcomes, creating temporary conditions in which they can actively engage with circumstances beyond their control. The work considers how these forms of agency and expression can remain invisible within the structural conditions that shape how children’s experiences are recognised and responded to. Play may appear ordinary or imaginative while carrying forms of knowledge and experience that are not immediately accessible to external observers.
Anna Kakhiani is a Ukrainian interdisciplinary artist currently based in Amsterdam. Her work is grounded in the connections between mental states and physical experience, the uncertainties of empathy, and the processing of forced transformations. Her practice often combines a keen attention to materiality with performative elements.
Opening: 26 November 17:00-20:00
Address:
Binnengasthuis 2 - BG2, Turfdraagsterpad 15, 1012 XT Amsterdam
Open hours: Mon. - Fri. 10:00 - 18:00;
Public program 2 December 16:00 - 18:00, details of the public program to be announced.
Credits and acknowledgements:
Anna Kakhiani, artist in residence
“Holding Grief: Engaging Trauma Through Contemporary Art”
Research Project at the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture
(AHM), University of Amsterdam, 2025-2028.
Lead Researcher: Dr. Anja Novak
Associate Researcher: Dr. Florian Göttke
