Dialogue in Silence

Dialogue in Silence is an exhibition about non-verbal communication, where participants discover a repertoire of expression possibilities with the help of deaf and hearing impaired guides and trainers.

Participants enter an area of complete silence, wearing noise-cancelling headsets, and experience an environment that helps them discover openness, empathy and an enhanced power of concentration.

Throughout the entire exhibition tour, a reversal of roles is created: hearing visitors lose their usual routines of articulating themselves and discover a new repertoire of non-verbal expression.

In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated 278 million people worldwide having moderate to profound hearing loss in both ears or are born deaf.

At the same time, a reversal of roles is created: hearing people are torn out of social routine and familiar perception.

Hearing-impaired people, who by virtue of their experience and ability to sign are more competent, support the visitors and become ambassadors of a world without sound which is no way poorer – but different.