Are you sound?

Where does the scream go once it’s muffled?

What does it feel like when you’re not heard?

Is silence a choice or a consequence?

Are we in this together?

Does silence feel like safety or punishment?

Is it still freedom if you follow the instruction?

When does endurance transform into complicity?

What sounds live in your body?

Are you unsound?

When Sound Becomes Unsound presents a series of interactive sculptural works that operate at the threshold of catharsis and containment. In this exhibition, Babak Golkar invites viewers into an ambiguous space that could be a conduit, a vessel, a surface, a platform, an excuse, a negotiation, or a framework, where emotional release—through sound, gesture, and participation—is both encouraged and questioned.

At the heart of the exhibition are Golkar’s hand-thrown, undecorated, and unglazed vessels ranging from hand-held objects to monumental forms. Designed to receive a scream, these pots invite viewers to unburden themselves, offering what seems to be a moment of personal release. But the act, though visceral, is also ambivalent: the scream is absorbed, muted, redirected. The gallery becomes a stage, and the viewer, a performer caught in a paradox: invited to let go, but within a tightly framed context. Is the scream heard, or merely contained?

Similarly, in Throw(n), Golkar presents an interactive video work that entices the audience to throw raw clay at the wall—an elemental, physical act. Unfolding within the highly codified space of the gallery, this playful action also becomes a metaphor: a chance to question what it means to act freely within systems that promise agency but quietly neutralize it.

Golkar’s work doesn’t prescribe meaning; instead, it opens a space for experience. Viewers are implicated—gently, provocatively—into the systems they inhabit. These vessels and gestures may offer catharsis, but also reflect the complex limits of expression within institutional, personal, and political structures.