sacred silence

TypeAraby was invited to participate in the upcoming X-Labs exhibition. We created an LED installation composed of Arabic letterforms that grow into a series of words representing a formal and conceptual exploration of the Arabic Script.

About Sacred Silence: The Arabic language is built on a system of trilateral roots or a masdar which refers to a three or four consonant based-word representing a core meaning or concept. Sacred Silence explores the letter nun as a seed that grows into kun (be) and the trilateral root sakan (home/live) and finally manifests into sukoon (stillness/bliss/quiet). The letter noon is the 14th letter of the Arabic alphabet, marking the midpoint of the 28 letters. Nun, in its isolated form, opens Surat-al-Qalam in the Quran making it one of the deeply spiritually significant letters in Islam. It is reversible in spelling and symmetrical in shape, its a circular bowl signifies the upper and lower worlds or the earth and cosmos. It also represents a vessel or an ark with the diacritic dot signifying the seed of immorality or an indestructible core that evades exterior dissolutions. In Sacred Silence, the concepts of reflection and reversibility are explored to signify the dance between, an internal spirituality and an external stillness, a journey from recognizing our existence through contemplative silence. The piece is composed of thousands of LED bulbs that evoke the fractal multiplicity and repetition of nature encompassing a spectrum from seeds to stars.