hylē: a language without words

Curated by Anya Mokhova Hypha Studios South Bank / Gallery 2, 42 Southwark Bridge Rd, London, SE1 9EU PV: Monday, 12th October 2026, 6 – 9pm Open: 8th October – 15th November 2026, Thursday-Sunday 12pm – 6pm «A Language Without Words» takes its cue from hylē — the Ancient Greek word for a sculptor’s raw material, before Aristotle borrowed it to name matter itself. Long before it meant “matter” in the abstract, hylē was simply timber ready to be worked: potential, waiting for form. In the exhibition each material is treated in this original sense — as substance with its own behaviour, memory and voice, rather than a neutral vehicle for an artist’s idea. Bringing together ten sculptors working across ceramics, glass, metal, textile and mixed media, the exhibition traces how materials are burnt, fractured, stretched, layered, cast and constructed, carrying traces of touch, labour and previous lives — each work a record of the passage from potentiality to form. The exhibition uses the space as a single unified installation rather than ten separate zones — works interspersed by material affinity rather than by artist, so visitors read the space as one continuous material conversation. Wax and tallow hold warmth and memory; blown glass carries trapped breath; fired porcelain keeps the record of pressure and heat; cast aluminium bears the traces of floristic findings; wool, burnt fabric and cord retain the trace of land, fire and touch. Across ten distinct practices, the through-line is material as something that has been somewhere, held something, survived something. It is hylē in its oldest sense: matter caught mid-transformation, still legible as the thing it was before it became the thing it is. Read more Toggle Sculpture Installation Mixed media