Who gets to be seen? What ways of speaking (and knowing) are rewarded?

When reviewing our experiences of institutional ruptures and harm, hierarchies of language (spoken / body / styles) emerged repeatedly. Language in its many forms expands us and the limits of our worlds. Inside of institutions and movements, languages - verbal or non-verbal - often become a jargon that risks standardizing us into hierarchies of access, acceptability, and opportunity. 

When visualizing language, we were curious about the conch shell for its diverse meanings and use across places. For some of us, conch shells are portals to the sounds of the sea; For others a call to devotion and prayer; For our snail friends, a physical home - soon to be outgrown.