A child standing in front of a bookshelf can only reach the bottom shelf. The other shelves are visible, but out of reach. This simple moment sketches an image of how perception is shaped by body size, learned behavior, and hierarchy in different spaces. In the rooms of the Van Abbehuis, a selection of 40 artists explores how our view of the world is not only optical, but is fundamentally shaped by our physical orientation, social norms, and architectural structures.

Édouard Glissant argues for “the right to opacity,” stating that not everything needs to be fully knowable in order to be valuable. Similarly, Byung-Chul Han warns in The Transparency Society that the obsession with visibility and openness in contemporary culture does not lead to understanding, but rather to a loss of mystery and trust. Visibility becomes control; transparency becomes violence. In the exhibition, the tension between what we see and what remains just out of reach is expressed as an impulse of resistance against accessibility and the presumed neutrality of space.