An exhibition exploring the cultural and physiological dimensions of silence opens at apexart, 291 Church Street, New York, on June 5, running through July 25, 2026.
“Silence Is Still Our Best Chance,” curated by Oslo-based Indian sound artist Atul Giri, brings together works by Giri, Czech-born artist Šárka Benedová, and Berlin-based Argentine visual artist Carolina Boettner. The show is part of apexart’s NYC Open Call programme.
The exhibition’s curatorial premise draws on public health data: the World Health Organisation recommends keeping road traffic noise below 53 dB during the day and 45 dB at night, yet noise levels in heavily exposed urban corridors frequently exceed 80 dB(A). Giri’s curatorial essay frames this not merely as an environmental problem but as a crisis of inner life, arguing that the suppression of inner silence through constant stimulation has become normalised in ways that damage work, relationships and mental health.
The three participating artists approach silence through distinct media. Benedová contributes “Quiet Circle” (2026), a video and mirror fragment installation in which a figure attempts to remain still within a crowded, moving environment; the film is projected through a suspended sculpture of mirror fragments that scatter light unpredictably across gallery walls. Boettner’s “Displaced Sound, I to VII” comprises seven textile and acrylic works translating two contrasting Buenos Aires soundscapes, the city’s subway system and the Paraná Delta islands into layered printed images, proposing a shift from external sound to interior listening. Giri presents “Maun: Field Recordings” and “Ūrmiphone II: Absence of an Epoch,” works rooted in a sonic practice spanning noise and silence across Indian soundscapes.
Writing in the exhibition catalogue, Giri describes the show’s collective ambition as “a call to cultivate forms of listening through which both inner and outer life may be understood more deeply.”
The works do not treat silence as escape or purity, but as a recoverable natural state obscured by the conditions of contemporary urban existence.
apexart is a not-for-profit arts organisation. Admission details are available at www.apexart.org.
