This work reflects on two moments in my life: six-year-old me and me now. It explores how listening is shaped by technology, environment, and the body.
Through video, subtitles, and voice experiments, I translate disorientation into a form of storytelling.
It is an invitation to reimagine listening—not as hearing everything, but as navigating what is missing.
‘Six-Year-Old Me & Me Now’
- Main film
What if sound isn’t the only language?
This work compares two versions of myself: the six-year-old me, struggling to follow a world made of sound, and the person I am now, listening through a hearing aid, subtitles, and gestures.
In the video, I revisit the confusion and disorientation of childhood mishearing through layered visual and sound experiments. Fragments of lip-reading, hand-drawn subtitles, and animated yarn drawings interrupt each other, making it hard to fully “understand” what is being said. This fragmentation is intentional—because that’s how I remember listening.
The sound design reflects my embodied hearing: only the right speaker is turned on in the exhibition space, mimicking the fact that I wear a hearing aid only in my right ear. This creates an imbalance that visitors feel as soon as they enter—not everything is centered, and not every word is audible.
This work is personal, but also political. It asks:
If sound is no longer reliable, how do we construct meaning?
If language breaks down, can mishearing be a method of understanding?
- Main film
What if sound isn’t the only language?
This work compares two versions of myself: the six-year-old me, struggling to follow a world made of sound, and the person I am now, listening through a hearing aid, subtitles, and gestures.
In the video, I revisit the confusion and disorientation of childhood mishearing through layered visual and sound experiments. Fragments of lip-reading, hand-drawn subtitles, and animated yarn drawings interrupt each other, making it hard to fully “understand” what is being said. This fragmentation is intentional—because that’s how I remember listening.
The sound design reflects my embodied hearing: only the right speaker is turned on in the exhibition space, mimicking the fact that I wear a hearing aid only in my right ear. This creates an imbalance that visitors feel as soon as they enter—not everything is centered, and not every word is audible.
This work is personal, but also political. It asks:
If sound is no longer reliable, how do we construct meaning?
If language breaks down, can mishearing be a method of understanding?
- Film
This video is an extended experiment of “Six-Year-Old Me vs. Now Me”, combining two practices I’ve been exploring: a lip-reading test and sound painting.
Part 1: Lip-reading Test
In this segment, I invite the viewer to try lip-reading—without subtitles, without sound, without certainty.
I say familiar phrases, but you may find them difficult to understand. That’s the point.
As someone who relies on lip-reading in noisy environments, I often feel pressure to keep up or pretend to understand.
The video is designed to disturb: the camera is too close, the speaker’s face is cropped, the lighting is harsh.
Subtitles are delayed or missing.
These choices recreate the anxiety, doubt, and emotional labor of trying to understand without hearing.
Part 2: Sound Painting
Here, I draw what I “hear”: the roar of a bus, the crash of footsteps, the murmur of fabric brushing against a hearing aid.
I use crayons, pastels and yarn to translate these sounds into visual textures.
The drawings are animated—chaotic, compressed, fragmented—like how sound feels in my body.
I also invited friends to join a workshop.
We each drew our own feelings and imagination of the sounds around us.
Some focused on rhythm, others on silence, vibration, or the emotional weight of sound.
These collective drawings reveal how personal and varied listening can be, even in the same city.
Instead of offering clarity, this video conveys a feeling:
What happens when communication becomes unstable?
Can misunderstandings be visualised?
Sound Paintings with Yarn
These yarn paintings are part of my ongoing experiment in auditory visualization.
Each piece captures a specific sound or moment: rain on an umbrella, the low hum of a bus engine, the rustle of fabric near a hearing aid.
I use yarn not only as a medium, but also as a way to express the texture, tension, and direction of sound as I feel it in my body.
Unlike traditional sound maps, these works are messy, layered, and emotional.
Some are loose and fluid, others dense and tangled.
Together they form a personal map of fragmented listening.
Each piece captures a specific sound or moment: rain on an umbrella, the low hum of a bus engine, the rustle of fabric near a hearing aid.
I use yarn not only as a medium, but also as a way to express the texture, tension, and direction of sound as I feel it in my body.
Unlike traditional sound maps, these works are messy, layered, and emotional.
Some are loose and fluid, others dense and tangled.
Together they form a personal map of fragmented listening.
Learning BSL: A Reflection
Part of the project “Mapping Sound”
“I thought learning a non-verbal language would help me communicate.
But it also changed how I see myself.”
Read more →
Part of the project “Mapping Sound”
“I thought learning a non-verbal language would help me communicate.
But it also changed how I see myself.”
Read more →
Exhibition & Mentions
Exhibition
Six-Year-Old Me vs. Me Now was exhibited at the Deptford X Fringe Festival 2025 in London.
The video was installed in a sound-focused space where only the right speaker was activated, mimicking my experience of wearing a hearing aid on one side.
The screen was placed at ear-height, with no seating provided—encouraging a short, unsettled viewing experience that reflects my everyday listening.
The installation invited viewers to engage with confusion, misalignment, and partial understanding.
Press & Writing
My work was recently featured in Pink Loudspeaker (Issue 92).
They described my practice as “a careful and stubborn excavation of personal dissonance”, and reflected on how my projects open up new ways of thinking about voice, silence, and miscommunication.
Click to read →