K-h! ⟦ǂã̙⟧
Exhibited at Caves Gallery for NGV Design Week, 2024

K-h! ⟦ǂã̙⟧ explores the sounds of a baby, to consider pre-linguistic speech.

From the age of one week to four months, vocal sounds of a baby have been recorded. The pitches and rhythms of these sounds have then been translated into Western music notation. Subsequently, this notation has been translated into a visual music code and embedded into a series of beadings.

In this process, the wetness, bubbliness and fleshiness of the baby’s sounds have been lost; the voice has been separated from the body. This attempt to categorise the baby’s untranslatable sounds has omitted an element of her uniqueness. However, through analysing the coded sounds, repetitions and patterns have emerged, creating understandings that otherwise may have been missed in the moment.

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

Photos by Tasha Tylee.