K-h! ⟦ǂã̙⟧
Caves Gallery / National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Design Week, 2024
Presented to the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) Art Club
Featured on ABC Arts and in Art Monthly

K-h! ⟦ǂã̙⟧ explores the sounds of a baby as a way of thinking about pre-linguistic speech.

Between the ages of one week and four months, Camille recorded the vocal sounds of her baby. The pitches and rhythms of these sounds were then transcribed into Western musical notation, before being converted into a visual music code and embedded into a series of beaded works.

In the process, the wetness, bubbliness, and fleshiness of the baby’s sounds are lost, and the voice is separated from the body. This attempt to categorise sounds that resist translation also obscures an element of the baby’s uniqueness. At the same time, analysing the coded material reveals repetitions and patterns that may not have been apparent in the moment.

Three essays by linguist Dr Adele Gregory, artist Helen Johnson, and writer Roslyn Orlando accompany the exhibition.

Photos by Tasha Tylee.