An Interdisciplinary Cultural Laboratory
Because no sphere of life is untouched by race, the Institute gathers under its aegis an interdisciplinary range of artists, writers, knowledge-producers, and activists. It convenes a cultural laboratory in which the racial imaginaries of our time and place are engaged, read, countered, contextualized, and demystified.
About the Institute
Founded in 2016, The Racial Imaginary Institute is a multidisciplinary platform engaging with art and scholarship to examine race’s role and impact. Artists, academics, and organizations interested in collaboration or submitting work are encouraged to reach out. For inquiries, submissions, or to discuss potential partnerships, please contact us at info@theracialimaginary.org.
What We Do
We are committed to the activation of interdisciplinary work and a democratized exploration of race in our lives. The Institute takes the form of a moving collaboration with other collectives, spaces, artists, and organizations towards art exhibitions, readings, dialogues, lectures, performances, and screenings that engage the subject of race. The Racial Imaginary website functions as an online portal to the activities of the Institute. All events at The Racial Imaginary Institute are free and open to the public.
2026 TRII Marseille
The Racial Imaginary Institute’s Unworlding project arrives in Marseille as the next chapter in an evolving investigation into race, power, and collective life. Earlier iterations—On Whiteness (New York, 2018), On Nationalism (New York, 2022), and For Real For Real (Berlin, 2025)—examined how cultural and political structures shape our shared realities. Marseille’s layered histories, Mediterranean position, and lived experiences of migration and belonging bring these questions into sharp relief. Its cultural vitality and social complexity make it a place where new forms of dialogue and relation can take shape.
Inspired by Villa Air-Bel, the wartime refuge for artists and intellectuals fleeing fascism, TRII Marseille imagines what a contemporary site of exchange and creative refuge might be. Rooted in collaborations with Marseille-based communities and organizations, the initiative will host residencies, exhibitions, and public conversations that cultivate connection and shared inquiry. Rather than establishing a fixed institution, TRII Marseille builds a flexible and evolving network—one that supports dialogue as a form of resilience across borders, disciplines, and lived experiences.