06/02/2026
Upcoming Poetry Performance
"Speak the Unhearable"
Wrightwood 659
June 11, 6 PM
“Speak the unhearable, and show the invisible.”—Martin Wong
Join us for an evening of casual misunderstanding, a punny pair-a-dice, and close listening with voices unheard.
Inspired by the work of the q***r poet and painter Martin Wong, “Speak the Unhearable” is a live performance by poet Noa Fields and artist Nat Pyper engaging the limits of language and communication through what is said, read, and (not) heard.
Through spoken, transcribed, and signed language, Fields and Pyper build on Wong’s experimental approach to language as a visual form and (counter)cultural signifier. From intentionally misspelled and distorted calligraphy-inspired texts to the left-handed American Sign Language scripts he painted above graffiti-covered buildings, Wong treated language as a mutable material across his varied practice—a trickster toeing the line between what is meant and what is understood. Taking these investigations as a point of departure, this performance considers how meaning shifts when words transfer across voices, bodies, and forms.
Purchase your ticket at the link in our bio.
Images: Martin Wong, detail of "Co-dependent No More," c. 1992, acrylic on canvas; © Martin Wong Foundation. Courtesy of the Martin Wong Foundation and P·P·O·W, New York.
Photo by Eva Geczy.
Installation view of "Martin Wong: Chinatown USA," at Wrightwood 659, 2026. Photo by Shanti Knight.
Photo by Ang Zheng.
