Join artist Ana Teresa Fernández and Paul Farber, Director of Monument Lab, for a virtual conversation about language, loss, renewal, and reimagining monuments.

Ana Teresa Fernández’s SHHH, one of five monuments in Slow Motion at Grounds for Sculpture, engages with the climate crisis around languages on the verge of extinction. As sea level rise threatens to displace vulnerable communities on islands and coastlines, linguists believe that half of the 7,000 languages currently spoken around the world will cease to exist by the end of this century. Fernández’s “SHHH” creates an auditory intervention as wind rustles hundreds of gold mirrored disks, yielding an onomatopoeic interpretation of silence.  An invitation to listen and gaze into a distorted reflection of the self and our surroundings, the monument encourages visitors to consider what can be done to avert the devastating loss of language. 

Image Credits: Ana Teresa Fernández, SHHH, 2023, Grounds for Sculpture,  Hamilton, New Jersey, Slow Motion curated by Patricia Eunji Kim for Monument Lab (Photography by Bruce M. White).

Major support has been provided to Grounds for Sculpture for Slow Motion by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Brooke Barrie Art Fund, NRG Energy, and Julie and Michael Nachamkin. Additional support has been provided by the Atlantic Foundation, Holman, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts and New Jersey Department of State.