Blank Pages, 2026

Framed photographs, pigment print on Dibond. Selected examples.

During the artist’s search for traces in the archives, it became clear that Ulrica’s own voice was often missing. Rather than focusing on the categorisations and circumstances in her life that have been preserved, Mangalanayagam has focused on the blank pages instead. Here, the reverse sides of her land title, documents about her ownership of enslaved people, as well as records of her violent actions and insults emerge as alternative narratives. The repeated recording of men’s names, citizenship and prosecution makes the women’s absence conspicuous.

By providing space for reflection and speculation, Mangalanayagam opens up new perspectives on our history and how it is written. Unlike the historian, she focuses on unwritten pages and the gaps in the archives. The blank pages are often pages that have not been scanned or lack metadata that makes them impossible to find in digital archives. Instead, they are recorded as ‘blank pages’.

In the exhibition space, Mangalanayagam has enlarged these blank pages to envelop us with what is missing, what was not written down and what has been lost. Her hope is that they will make room for speculation and critical fabulation (after Saidiya Hartman), allowing new stories to emerge. In which stories can we recognise what is missing, and what does that say about the documentation?