Deafening Silence is a collaborative video work by the artist Seo Hye Lee that arose in exchange with Deaf communities in Düsseldorf and further cities. The work investigates how sound in urban spaces can be interpreted, imagined, and accessed using visual cues.
The work takes as its starting point the phrase “deafening silence,” reframing and reinterpreting it from Deaf perspectives. Through short, silent videos and their poetic, humorous, and at times disconcerting captions, the work explores the meanings ascribed to sound in urban spaces, and how this process of ascription plays out through interactions between perception, context, and expectation.
The captioned videos can be found on various screens in public space. In this way, the urban context itself becomes a site for reflecting on how sound is experienced, described, and interpreted, as well as which perspectives are brought to the fore in the process.
This newly commissioned work is the result of an open call and was selected by a jury consisting of Joshua Pesch-Ulonska, Siegfried Saerberg, and Linnea Semmerling.
![Surreale Collage mit der Sängerin Hermoine Zittlau als Königin in prunkvollem Rot-Gold-Kleid und Hermelinmantel vor einer violett-beigen Tapete. Links ein kleines Fenster, rechts der Gebärdensprachpoet Gunter Trube als königlicher Berater, dessen Größe und Pose ihn vom Raum losgelöst wirken lassen. Am unteren linken Rand ein angeschnittenes Gesicht mit geöffnetem Mund. Eingeblendet der Untertitel: „Her Majesty should listen in disguise“ [Du musst Dich umkleiden und zuhören].](/sites/default/files/styles/custom_desktop_crop/public/media/images/2026-03/Bildschirmfoto%202026-01-06%20um%2014.42.12%281%29.png?h=79933ff7&itok=iACR6CQT)
