In The Silent Poultry series, Iranian-born artist Sara Rahanjam explores the profound relationship between language, silence, and movement through a series of surreal, mixed media sculptures. Each work features a pair of bold lips—crafted from fiberglass—with bronze legs extending from them, forming an uncanny dadaist hybrid that is both sensual and unsettling.

The lips, a universal symbol of speech and silence, serve as the point of origin for communication—the place where words are born, restrained, or distorted. The bronze legs that emerge from them introduce a sense of propulsion and consequence. They become a metaphor for the ways in which words, once released, take on a life of their own; moving, shaping, and transforming the world around us.

Rahanjam’s choice of materials underscores this duality: the fiberglass lips, smooth and vividly hued, suggest fragility and immediacy, while the bronze legs evoke endurance and consequence. Together, they articulate the tension between expression and action between the ephemeral nature of speech and the enduring impact of its outcomes.

Created in response to the turbulence of recent years—marked by political upheaval, and social unrest—The Silent Poultry reflects Rahanjam’s awareness of human vulnerability and the weight of communication in times of crisis. The series invites viewers to consider the moral and emotional dimensions of language: how words can propel progress or incite destruction, heal or divide, liberate or suppress, who gets to speak and who is heard.

Through this surreal union, Rahanjam transforms the act of speaking into a physical gesture one that reminds us that every word carries motion, and every silence, its own gravity.