Viviane Rombaldi Seppey, Voice (Gallery Two)

About

Having lived most of her life in places where the spoken language was not her mother tongue, artist Viviane Rombaldi Seppey’s recent series of works explores issues around verbal language, communication and comprehension. She began to investigate elements of language, questioning how arbitrary words are when they are incomprehensible, how much language can be hermetic, and how to be functional in a place where people have difficulty understanding you. The Roman alphabet became the visual starting point of the themes in her work, as it has been the common element for the different languages that she has encountered. Her exhibition, Voice, includes artist books, drawings, collages, and an interactive sound piece. In the central piece, the alphabet lines of the work, Pulsating, are replicated into a musical score (a collaborative work with the musician Benjamin Velez) and transcribed on paper to be played with music boxes. Visitors are invited to choose one letter of the alphabet and play it on the sound art piece. The “singing” letters become a language on its own and invite the viewers to think and explore the idea of communication through language.