We’re drawn to the moments where history and the present sit close — close enough to reveal what’s changed, and what hasn’t.
When Nationalmuseum opened their exhibition on Gustav Badin, we ended up in a quiet but intense team conversation. Not about “what’s next,” but about what’s still here. We kept circling the same truth: Badin’s story isn’t just history — it’s an early blueprint of how power works through the body. How you can be read, placed, and controlled before you’ve even spoken.
That’s how we landed on I Don’t See Color, and why it felt essential to place it right beside Badin’s exhibition. Back then, power was performed out loud. Today it moves with softer shoes — but it still arrives the same way: on skin, on posture, on the assumptions people make before you’ve said a word.
We brought Liban’s visual universe into the museum’s rooms and let it meet Yasin’s voice. His unreleased music became the pulse of the installation — shifting the space from “exhibition” into presence. Something you don’t just look at, but feel with you as you leave.
Because the duality is still with us: how certain bodies and voices can be lifted by the people, carried by culture — and still be limited by the systems around them.
Visit the Gustav Badin exhibition at Nationalmuseum for more history and depth on ”Couchin”.
Artwork by @liban.se
Music by @twogunkid163
Creative direction by TCK / Liban / @klaradjamilakassmansoukkan
Tattoo workshop by @allegratattoo_
Exhibition film by @isco07s
”I DON’T SEE COLOR!”
Chapter 3 of the ”Body as the First Home” series turns to skin— our first home and border.
At Nationalmuseum, in the shadow of Gustav Badin, Liban presents ”Byn Block Entertainment” - A
3-channel video installation exploring who is allowed to be complex, who gets seen as a “risk,” and what it takes to be accepted.
📍Nationalmuseum
⏱️17.00-20.00
📆19 Feb
Film by @iscoark
Creative Direction: @iskiastglb
♟️
NATIONALMUSEUM
2026.02.19
17.00 - 20.00
For the third chapter in the collaboration between Nationalmuseum and TCK - The Body as Our First Home - Third Culture Kids explores how first impressions shape how we are seen. Before we have the right words, we are often read through our skin. And for many of us, that is where code-switching begins — small shifts in how we speak, move, and present ourselves - simply to be understood or blend in.
The phrase “I Don’t See Color!” is often offered with kindness, yet can land as not seeing what someone has lived through. For those moving through the world in Black or brown bodies, everyday realities risk disappearing behind the promise of neutrality. Liban’s work redirects attention to this fragile space, where perception arrives before understanding.
Presented as a multi-channel music video installment, the piece brings image, sound, and movement into dialogue, tracing how personal experience and social structures meet on the body. Liban, a Swedish-Somali artist based in Stockholm, works across identity and communication, using precision and humour to disarm and linger. In conversation with Nationalmuseums exhibition on Gustav Badin, the work reflects on what it means to be read before being understood — and what is lost when lived experience is overlooked.
Music for the night by @diaspora.cltv
Artwork by @iskiastglb
I ett parallellt universum skulle Liban ta hand om getter och Yuvia räkna pengar som bankir 🤣
Istället skapar de konst, upplev deras verk på UnMute Live 31/10 på Värmeverket. RSVP via länken i bion!🤞
