UNTRANSLATABLE

A typographic and visual lexicon of emotion across languages.

Through typography and visual interpretation, this living lexicon offers a glimpse into the complexity of human feeling across cultures.

This project explores words from London’s many languages that have no direct English equivalent, capturing emotions of longing, tenderness, melancholy, and joy that resist simple translation.

Beginning with the Korean word 답답하다 (dap-dap-ha-da), which expresses a feeling of suffocation or frustration, the work reflects on how language shapes our understanding of emotion and how translation both connects and limits us.

 
 

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As shown at the UAL Creative Industries London Exhibition:

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PAPILLON

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PHARAOH