Ideologies of Display

Ideologies of Display is a series of large-scale photographs depicting architectural installations meticulously constructed by the artist within the controlled space of her studio. These environments are not autonomous inventions but careful reconstructions, shaped through the specific tactics and methods developed by the modernist architect Berthold Lubetkin and his collective Tecton—key figures in the architectural transformations of 1930s Britain. Together, they authored some of the earliest modernist panopticon-like display systems: the zoological pavilions of Dudley Zoo and London Zoo. These were architectures of total visibility, in which the exhibited animal could, for the first time, be seen at all times and from any position occupied by the spectator.

In returning to Lubetkin’s work, Cibic does not merely cite a historical precedent but activates it as a critical framework through which to examine the exhibition space as an architectonic apparatus. What emerges is an inquiry into the ideological structures embedded beneath its surfaces—structures that determine not only how something is shown, but how it is understood, valued and received. The installations restage the logic of display as both a spatial and political condition, exposing the mechanisms that organise perception and regulate visibility.

Within these constructed settings, the presence of animals—confined, positioned, and rendered perpetually visible—recalls and destabilises the display strategies of 1930s zoological exhibits. These were governed by strict spatial rules designed to eliminate the possibility of concealment, ensuring that the animal remained continuously available to the spectator’s gaze. In Cibic’s work, this enforced visibility is both reproduced and undone: the animal becomes a figure through which the violence and precision of such systems are made legible.

The series extends architecture beyond its conventional role as a neutral container for display, transforming it into the object of display itself. The structures no longer simply frame what is seen; they become what is seen. In doing so, the work shifts attention from the exhibited subject to the conditions of its presentation, amplifying what was intended to remain invisible. What comes into focus is the underlying ideology of display itself—the constructed nature of looking, and the systems of power that govern what is made visible, and how.