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 into two established systems, has diminished a language of individuality. However, through analysing the coded sounds, repetitions have emerged, creating patterns that otherwise may have been missed in the moment.
Three essays on the voice, by Helen Johnson, Roslyn Orlando and Dr Adele Gregory, will accompany the exhibition.
Camille Laddawan’s practice is centred on beading. Her work is often inscribed with fragments of text and music notation by way of a visual code. Through these codes, her work comments on the nature of institutional language, and how enforced systems can affect the uniqueness of the individual. By drawing on personal encounters of coming into contact with legal, welfare and healthcare bodies, and language itself, Camille’s work seeks to make these experiences and ways of communicating visible.