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James Baldwin and the Voices of Resistance
28.02.2026 — 31.05.2026James Baldwin and the Voices of Resistance
This Morning, This Evening, So Soon – Turkey Saved My Life
James Baldwin and the Voices of Resistance
28.02.2026 — 31.05.2026James Baldwin and the Voices of Resistance
James Baldwin, 1969 — Photo: Allan Warren
This Morning, This Evening, So Soon – Turkey Saved My Life
James Baldwin and the Voices of Resistance
In the spring of 2026, West Den Haag presents ‘This Morning, This Evening, So Soon – Turkey Saved My Life’, an exhibition on the influence of writer and activist James Baldwin. Guided by Baldwin’s moral compass, various artists explore the in-between space of themes such as exile, queerness, and new forms of resistance.
Through his radical honesty about race, sexuality, and identity, Baldwin serves as a mirror for our time. His voice resonates today, in a society once again grappling with freedom, identity, and cultural uprooting.
James Baldwin fled the United States for Europe in 1948 to escape suffocating racism and homophobia. Although Baldwin’s years in Turkey (1961–1971) are hardly known in the Netherlands, they were crucial for his literary development. Here he found rest, love, collaboration, and freedom. In this exhibtion, exile is therefore not seen as loss, but rather as a radical position for new forms of humanity and community. In the tension between exile and homecoming, the artists find their starting point to explore themes such as identity and queerness, using the in-between space as a starting point for resistance.
The presentation at West Den Haag invites visitors to reflect through art, photography, performance, and literature on themes such as freedom, exile, love, identity, and queer resistance. For Baldwin, identity is never a final destination but a struggle, a movement, a negotiation. Baldwin’s queerness is not separated from his thinking but placed at the center as a source of moral clarity. The participating artists demonstrate how queer imagination recalibrates our current struggle for freedom and humanity, with the pursuit of human dignity forming the backbone of this exhibition.
Diana Blok (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1952) focuses on themes such as identity, gender, memory, and cultural belonging across different parts of the world. With poetic and sometimes confrontational portraits, she challenges binary thinking. Her work spans photography, film, and installation, emphasizing identity as fluid and constantly evolving. Exhibitions include but are not limited to SIC, Athenes; Cobra Museum, Amsterdam and cultural space Hal, Paramaribo, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Arti et Amicitae, Amsterdam and Photographers Gallery, London.
Beldan Sezen (Wiesbaden, Germany, 1967) explores themes such as war, confinement, and human resilience in minimalist works and artists’ books. She works at the intersection of memory, identity, and collective experience. Her last publication is titled ‘I Kill You in Dreams’ (2023). Her work is part of different university and library collections, including the KB National Library of The Hague. She had several solo exhibitions including the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbütte.
Sai Rodrigues (Praia, Kaapverdië, 1991) is an illustrator who creates a graphic novel for this exhibition inspired by Baldwin’s stay in Turkey in Film Noir style, in which he uses Baldwin’s moral and existential compass to explore themes such as migration, isolation, and freedom. He also illustrates music album covers. He previously exhibited at 38CC Delft. Isaiah Lopaz (Inglewood, bezet Tongaland, 1979) is a transdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on collage, photography, text, and performance. Lopaz descends from Igbo, West African, Geechee, African-American, and Indigenous peoples. Lopaz has exhibited and performed at various institutions including the 10th Berlin Biennale, Kunstverein, Hamburg and the HAU, Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, Berlin.
Özkan Gölpınar (Sivas, Turkije, 1968) is the curator of this exhibition and the author of the theatrical monologue ‘In This Silence’, about a decisive moment in the life of James Baldwin: his departure from the United States. The monologue will be presented on a continuous basis and will also be published as a standalone publication. Gölpınar is a writer for, among others, De Groene Amsterdammer and the daily newspaper Trouw.
In connection with this project, we will organize a series of evenings in which artists, writers, and thinkers reflect on Baldwin’s legacy and relate it to contemporary questions surrounding migration, identity, and (queer) representation.
James Baldwin and the Voices of Resistance
Exhibition
28.02.2026 — 31.05.2026
Opening
28.02.2026, 19:00 hrs.
Location
West Den Haag in the former American Embassy, Lange Voorhout 102, The Hague
In the spring of 2026, West Den Haag presents ‘This Morning, This Evening, So Soon – Turkey Saved My Life’, an exhibition on the influence of writer and activist James Baldwin. Guided by Baldwin’s moral compass, various artists explore the in-between space of themes such as exile, queerness, and new forms of resistance.
Through his radical honesty about race, sexuality, and identity, Baldwin serves as a mirror for our time. His voice resonates today, in a society once again grappling with freedom, identity, and cultural uprooting.
James Baldwin fled the United States for Europe in 1948 to escape suffocating racism and homophobia. Although Baldwin’s years in Turkey (1961–1971) are hardly known in the Netherlands, they were crucial for his literary development. Here he found rest, love, collaboration, and freedom. In this exhibtion, exile is therefore not seen as loss, but rather as a radical position for new forms of humanity and community. In the tension between exile and homecoming, the artists find their starting point to explore themes such as identity and queerness, using the in-between space as a starting point for resistance.
The presentation at West Den Haag invites visitors to reflect through art, photography, performance, and literature on themes such as freedom, exile, love, identity, and queer resistance. For Baldwin, identity is never a final destination but a struggle, a movement, a negotiation. Baldwin’s queerness is not separated from his thinking but placed at the center as a source of moral clarity. The participating artists demonstrate how queer imagination recalibrates our current struggle for freedom and humanity, with the pursuit of human dignity forming the backbone of this exhibition.
Diana Blok (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1952) focuses on themes such as identity, gender, memory, and cultural belonging across different parts of the world. With poetic and sometimes confrontational portraits, she challenges binary thinking. Her work spans photography, film, and installation, emphasizing identity as fluid and constantly evolving. Exhibitions include but are not limited to SIC, Athenes; Cobra Museum, Amsterdam and cultural space Hal, Paramaribo, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Arti et Amicitae, Amsterdam and Photographers Gallery, London.
Beldan Sezen (Wiesbaden, Germany, 1967) explores themes such as war, confinement, and human resilience in minimalist works and artists’ books. She works at the intersection of memory, identity, and collective experience. Her last publication is titled ‘I Kill You in Dreams’ (2023). Her work is part of different university and library collections, including the KB National Library of The Hague. She had several solo exhibitions including the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbütte.
Sai Rodrigues (Praia, Kaapverdië, 1991) is an illustrator who creates a graphic novel for this exhibition inspired by Baldwin’s stay in Turkey in Film Noir style, in which he uses Baldwin’s moral and existential compass to explore themes such as migration, isolation, and freedom. He also illustrates music album covers. He previously exhibited at 38CC Delft. Isaiah Lopaz (Inglewood, bezet Tongaland, 1979) is a transdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on collage, photography, text, and performance. Lopaz descends from Igbo, West African, Geechee, African-American, and Indigenous peoples. Lopaz has exhibited and performed at various institutions including the 10th Berlin Biennale, Kunstverein, Hamburg and the HAU, Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, Berlin.
Özkan Gölpınar (Sivas, Turkije, 1968) is the curator of this exhibition and the author of the theatrical monologue ‘In This Silence’, about a decisive moment in the life of James Baldwin: his departure from the United States. The monologue will be presented on a continuous basis and will also be published as a standalone publication. Gölpınar is a writer for, among others, De Groene Amsterdammer and the daily newspaper Trouw.
In connection with this project, we will organize a series of evenings in which artists, writers, and thinkers reflect on Baldwin’s legacy and relate it to contemporary questions surrounding migration, identity, and (queer) representation.