UNTRANSLATABLE
a typographic and visual lexicon of emotion across languages.
Recontextualizing 32 paintings and 49 words across 27 languages, 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.
Spread by Spread
