A sound learned before language becomes a seven-metre field of red light. Dalia Rafeh repeats the Arabic ش until a familiar vocal gesture becomes image and physical presence. Borrowing from the visual language of public signage, the work makes silence visible, leaving its meaning open between command, pause, restraint, reflection and listening.

Shhhhhhhh explores the relationship between language, silence and visual communication, transforming a familiar vocal gesture into an illuminated sculptural statement. Drawing on the Arabic letter ش (sheen), associated with the sound used to request quiet, the work extends and repeats this expression until it becomes a continuous line of red light.

A sound often understood instinctively, without the need for explanation, is translated into a visual form that occupies physical space. Through repetition and scale, Dalia Rafeh transforms an intimate, fleeting gesture into a monumental presence, questioning how meaning changes when communication moves between sound, writing, image and material.

Rendered in red illuminated lettering, the installation draws on the visual language of commercial signage and public displays, where light is commonly used to attract attention, communicate information or issue instructions. Here, however, the message is one of quiet. This contradiction becomes central to the work: an instruction associated with silence is made emphatically visible through a medium designed to command attention.

The repeated letterform moves between language and abstraction, becoming both a recognisable expression and an extended visual composition. Its meaning remains open to interpretation. What might initially appear as a command to be silent can equally suggest a moment of pause, reflection, restraint or an invitation to listen. The installation also considers the social and emotional dimensions of communication, particularly the ways silence can be requested, imposed, shared or chosen.

Presented as part of In Other Words, Shhhhhhhh challenges the assumption that communication depends on speech or written explanation, asking how something associated with the absence of sound can acquire such a strong visual presence.

About Dalia Rafeh
Dalia Rafeh is a Lebanese multidisciplinary artist and visual communicator working across painting, drawing, text, neon and installation. She studied Interior Design and Fine Arts at the Lebanese University in Beirut, later founding Metaphor, an interior design company, and Masila Gallery, a gallery, concept store and social space.

Her practice draws on her experience across art, design, space and movement, exploring memory, identity, belonging and collective experience. Working intuitively across different mediums, she incorporates recurring forms, symbols and fragments of Arabic language into her work. Her recent practice extends into text-based and spatial installations, including هذه على أرض السلام (Peace upon this Earth), a moving light installation carrying a message of peace into architectural and public settings. Based between Dubai and Beirut, she continues to develop work across image, language, light and space.