Songs That Lost Their Voice 2026
TV, headphones, microphone, furniture, red tape, red pocket, ink on rice paper, sound and found objects.
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SONGS THAT LOST THEIR VOICE • 2026
An interactive installation using karaoke and Cantonese pop to reflect on language loss, silenced voices and diasporic experience.
This work explores how political undercurrents can exist subtly within popular culture, and how voices may be softened, marginalised, or silenced through broader social and political structures.
. . .
Songs That Lost Their Voice recreates a Lunar New Year living room, featuring a TV, headphones, microphone, sofa and festive objects. Visitors are invited to sing along karaoke-style, following subtitles and visuals while wearing headphones. While the music and the participant’s voice are clearly heard through the headphones, the microphone is almost muted, allowing only a faint trace of sound to enter the gallery space.
Rather than focusing solely on the songs, the work reflects on language—particularly Cantonese, and how it is experienced, carried and reshaped in diasporic and politically constrained contexts. Language becomes something spoken softly and held close through everyday rituals, remaining alive yet increasingly vulnerable as its volume, visibility and public presence diminish.
The exhibition explores how sound shapes ritual, identity and belonging across cultures. In this installation, I found myself drawn to the sounds of language, especially Cantonese, carrying the earliest memories of home. Working on this piece allowed me to return to Lunar New Year memories from back home.
. . .
The only time each year when my mum would make me new clothes,
AND MY DAD WOULD BUY ME A NEW PAIR OF SHOES.
The house was never quiet:
the constant ringing of the doorbell, people coming and going,
the busy sounds of the kitchen preparing festive food,
laughter filing every corner,
television music playing alongside mahjong, card games,
and children running endlessly through the rooms.
When creating a work about sound during such a festive time,
I found myself inevitably bringing these personal memories into the installation.
It is about home — the sounds I miss,
and also about what has happened to my homeland,
and how a voice can slowly be lost.
People may still appear joyful, still singing,
but one wonders whether it is truly their own voice.
有啲聲音，由細聽到大。
以為會一直都喺l度。
Performance: Pamela Leung—Songs That Lost Their Voice 2026. Art Space on The Concourse | Duration 4:52 min
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