too quiet to hear
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spoken word performance, c. 16:00
pen-pals, phone scams, mosquito sound, and sensitivity.
instead of being louder, can you come closer?
Preview here
too quiet to hear is a spoken word performance that consider quietness as a level of sensitivity. In this performance Li intertwines his personal stories into a sonic experience through the use of text, voice, and the slippages of meaning. In “The Wild Swans” by Hans Christian Andersen, a princess must remain quiet and knit stinging nettles from the graveyards into shirts to save her brothers. There is beauty associated with the quiet and lack of agency which essentially makes the prince fall in love with the princess. To what extent can an accent be sexy, otherness be exotic?
Performed at Center for Arts, Research, and Alliance, New York, NY (2023)
Asymmetry Foundation Day Ritual, London, GB (2023)
Screened at Bank Gallery, New York, NY (2025)
Press:
"Drifting from stories between childhood pen-pals to scam calls in Mandarin to fleeting moments of tenderness from a past romance, too quiet to hear meanders in tone as well as content, with the register of Li’s voice shifting from the measured gravitas of a newscast to the soft coo of a lullaby. Li is not interested in being “loud”; instead, he invites the viewer to lean in. A bilingual upbringing can engender a heightened awareness toward silence and attunement, for in the passageway between two languages, one code-switches, stumbles, and even nurtures stories that fail to be translated. Li’s work doesn’t try to fill the gaps between languages—it dwells in them. For diasporic communities so often pressured to “speak up,” Li’s piece offers a radical, alternative mode of expression—one that is not mute, but intentional in its ellipses; not invisible, but firm in its refusal to conform to dominant modes of visibility. "
spoken word performance, c. 16:00
pen-pals, phone scams, mosquito sound, and sensitivity.
instead of being louder, can you come closer?
Preview here
too quiet to hear is a spoken word performance that consider quietness as a level of sensitivity. In this performance Li intertwines his personal stories into a sonic experience through the use of text, voice, and the slippages of meaning. In “The Wild Swans” by Hans Christian Andersen, a princess must remain quiet and knit stinging nettles from the graveyards into shirts to save her brothers. There is beauty associated with the quiet and lack of agency which essentially makes the prince fall in love with the princess. To what extent can an accent be sexy, otherness be exotic?
Performed at Center for Arts, Research, and Alliance, New York, NY (2023)
Asymmetry Foundation Day Ritual, London, GB (2023)
Screened at Bank Gallery, New York, NY (2025)
Press:
"Drifting from stories between childhood pen-pals to scam calls in Mandarin to fleeting moments of tenderness from a past romance, too quiet to hear meanders in tone as well as content, with the register of Li’s voice shifting from the measured gravitas of a newscast to the soft coo of a lullaby. Li is not interested in being “loud”; instead, he invites the viewer to lean in. A bilingual upbringing can engender a heightened awareness toward silence and attunement, for in the passageway between two languages, one code-switches, stumbles, and even nurtures stories that fail to be translated. Li’s work doesn’t try to fill the gaps between languages—it dwells in them. For diasporic communities so often pressured to “speak up,” Li’s piece offers a radical, alternative mode of expression—one that is not mute, but intentional in its ellipses; not invisible, but firm in its refusal to conform to dominant modes of visibility. "
- Xintian Tina Wang, ArtAsiaPacific