English

summarizing silence is such an impossible thing to summarize for me. to create a single image to encompass all that silence is or can be makes me think of how Claudia Rankine describes “I” - a pronoun that barely holds so much detail when put under scrutiny, a word that has so much power that it’s overwhelming. 

for the sake of creating a summarizing dichotomy, i decided on “true” silence, or silencing, or nonconsensual silence 

A year ago, I would have posted an image of an empty drinking glass to represent silence. Uncomfortable with quiet and solitude, I had always considered silence to be an empty space with potential energy, waiting to be filled. Speech, the noise of city streets, and music were essential parts of my life. Lately, I love silence. Though I still associate it with emptiness, I now see it as an entity that can forever exist that way--an entity that is not inherently "lacking" anything--and in that sense, that empty space is at the same time full. Closing the rim of the glass, silence becomes an orb. 

"To sit in solemn silence on a dull dark dock..." the coherent yet meaningless series of alliterations tap a rhythm in my head. I remember reciting these lines from my diaphragm to practice pronunciation for the stage. And now  the words are no longer meaningless. They remind me of the moments when I recited them, alone and in chorus, shouting to the window and murmuring to myself. These are the thoughts that fill my silence. It isn't really silence at all, just a reflection of the noise from the day, like a face blurred and darkened in the ripples. A filling of the space with noise like a pond with water. It stretches to every edge and seeps into every crack. And maybe this silence is a chance for me to see myself, if only a reflection of myself.

The entangled juxaposition of the oppressed, hushed and forgotten, misunderstood. The silence of opportunity, venturing into the vulnerability of the shared, complicated analogy, intricate parallel. Inconvenient silence, transparent truth, the solitary affliction.

I can tell a story about this better in person... But the caption I'll include is "silence is electric"

- Alternative Ending by Asaf Hanuka

In the lyrics of The Sound of Silence, Paul Simon writes "... in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more people talking without speaking[,] people hearing without listening". I interpret it as Paul's criticism of people's numbness, lack of thinking and empathy while communicating with others. Meaningful exchange sometimes does not need any spoken language. For example, artists can show their splendid world through painting (which is in a silent way as shown in the picture I chose).

 I chose this picture I took because it is actually the "scene" I see every night before and after I meditate.  The lights in the picture from the brighter ones to the darker ones are like the process of entering into the silence as things and voices in my mind gradually fade out. And when my mind is blank, my true silence arrives.

I traced my hand and began to doodle in lines. This hand is a a representation of a part of me. It is a Hamsa (Arabic), a Yad (Hebrew), a symbol of peace and protection. It also reflects my love of art and of soothing repetition of lines and symbols--keeping my hand busy and my mind focused. Near the end of my design, I began to be more intentional about the symbols I chose. I chose to draw a peace sign and allowed it to fade unfinished. I did this because it sometimes seems that the more I strive for peace in my life and work, the more it seems to drift away.