VOICED is on for an extra few days
@barbicancentre till 4 November ‘25
@samwinston_ and
@mccabio1977 have presented something new with this exhibition, a window into a world of communication barely touched by the internet, a huge ecosystem of aural language and writing systems that most of us have never considered.
“We are not just coldly preserving things, we are celebrating language in all its forms: music, poetry, performance, visual art, talks, live events and workshops. It’s a month-long celebration of the vast impact art has on language and language has on art.”
——
We worked on the identity, and exhibition design. As well as showcasing the poetry and moving image, we developed custom display ‘stalks’ for
@elararchive and
@endangeredalphas materials, and a mapping system displaying 3,500 of the worlds most endangered languages on a polar-azimuthal projection — which
@samwinston_ proceeded to draw by hand, a lovely way to express an SQL database :)
It felt important not to apply one homogenous typographic ‘voice’ to this very varied material. Starting with the many writing systems that the commissioned poems used, the texts in the exhibition use an ever-changing mix of glyphs, from fonts that support Canadian Syllabics, Tifinagh and so-on. The result could definitely be described as ‘wonky’, but it does hopefully draw attention to a world outside our usual mode of reading :)
Thanks to:
@typotheque who kindly let us use some of their multilingual typefaces
@endangeredlanguagesproject for the world map data
@dafikuhne for the inspiration and advice for the ‘stalks’
@peter__harpin for skill and care
Curated by
@samwinston_ and
@mccabio1977
Photography by
@sewelland @haeinsong_ @modernactivity 
