The workshop "The House of Onomatopoeia-" by artist Yang Yu-Chiao together with the Whale - choir of adoptees.

The House of Onomatopoeia is an experimental sound art project by artist Yu-Chiao Yang, whose work explores folk storytelling and oral traditions. The project brings together everyday sounds, onomatopoeia, voice and music.

The audience is invited to move through the soundscape, read the words aloud and bring them to life with their own voices.

Originally launched in Taipei with support from C-LAB CREATORS, the project has since been developed in Taiwan and through collaborations in London, Paris, Berlin and Seoul.

A performance where the audience does not simply listen, but becomes part of the sound.

Supported by the National Culture and Arts Foundation.

THE WHALE BIOGRAPHY

The Whale is a choir of Swedish transracial, transnational, and transcultural adoptees from different generations and countries of origin.

The choir was formed in 2025 by Marie Dilmaya (sanktmarie) as part of her MFA in Fine Art at HDK-Valand. Its first performance took place singing to the taxidermied blue whale calf at the Gothenburg Museum of Natural History, exploring the parallels between the colonial practice of hunting, preserving, and displaying animals and the colonial histories and logics embedded in transracial adoption.

Since then, The Whale has continued to develop its practice through its collaboration with artist Nina Mangalanayagam, who invited the choir to interpret a musical score connected to Sweden's colonial history on Saint Barthélemy through humming. The resulting work, A Song from Across the Sea, was co-commissioned by Colomboscope and Aranya Art Center, where it is currently on view. The choir’s profile image is a still from this work, taken by Nina on the beach in Askim during the humming session, near the site where the whale calf stranded in 1865.

The choir has also performed at the opening of Alva Qi Törnqvist’s exhibition Utan ansikte, which explores transnational adoption. New collaborations are planned for the future.

The Whale is open to all adoptees, regardless of previous singing experience.