Beneath Tongues
Swiss Institute Annual Architecture and Design Series, Sixth Edition
Curated by Sable Elyse Smith

Swiss Institute, New York
Jan 21 – Apr 17, 2022

With Cudelice Brazelton IV, Abigail DeVille, Nikita Gale, Lauren Halsey, E. Jane, Steffani Jemison, Jennie C. Jones, Freddie June, Christine Sun Kim, Carolyn Lazard, Lydia Ourahmane, Sondra Perry, Patricia Satterwhite, Jessica Vaughn, Carrie Mae Weems

Swiss Institute's sixth edition of its annual Architecture and Design Series is curated by Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986, Los Angeles; lives and works in New York). The exhibition examines how the transmission of language occurs within both visible structures and unseen systems. Approaching speech on levels both sonic and societal, Smith’s exhibition raises vital questions around the potentials of the human voice, the transmission of sound, the articulation of language, and how those forces permeate and are shaped by both built environments and invisible networks. The artists included in this show explore the infinite ways these utterances, shouts, voids, songs, whispers, speeches and stories can culminate in a cacophony that leads individuals to, as Jack Halberstam writes, “a wild beyond the structures we inhabit, and that inhabit us.” Two floors of Swiss Institute will be activated by musical performances, which Smith designates as the exhibition’s score. When not performed live, the recorded score will play from SI's 2nd floor gallery and trickle down to the floor below. As such, the exhibition itself becomes an architecture in which sounds bleed and stories are told.

For more information, please visit the Swiss Institute website.