DAHEE HAN

Dahee Han is a multidisciplinary artist and designer working across moving image, sound, and sensory experiences through collaborative, research-led practice, with a focus on equity, humanity, and arts and health.

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The Shape of Sound, 2025
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Eternal Utopia, 2025

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Underneath of Breath, 2025


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The Shape of Sound, 2025



This experimental research film proposes a multisensory model of communication to address critical miscommunications in medical diagnoses, creating a more inclusive healthcare dialogue. 

At the heart of the research lies an inquiry into how individuals from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds might express their sensations through onomatopoeic and imitative sounds, alongside professionally-informed interpretative movement. Thus, it aims to more accurately visualise and materialise patients’ sensory and emotional experiences.

This film is intended to amplify the nuanced realities and lived experiences of patients, particularly those from diverse backgrounds whose voices are often overlooked in clinical contexts. This approach explores the potential of non-linguistic expression, serving as a valuable resource for individuals who face difficulties in linguistic articulation. 

Through participatory methods, I explore how patients express their deepest sensory and emotional experiences using onomatopoeic/imitative sounds and movement, utilising them as a crucial supplement to existing communication methods. The resultant film transforms these abstract, felt experiences into a tangible, empathetic language, thereby proposing the untapped potential in sensorial and non-linguistic forms of communication. 

Ultimately, this work seeks to transcend mere diagnostic accuracy by fostering a deeper level of communication and mutual understanding between different parties. I envision the film as a safe, inclusive space that sparks meaningful dialogue about more just and speculative models of shared living and care. Through this work, I aim to open up critical dialogues about how communication in healthcare can be understood and experienced at a more fundamental level.

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Dahee HanDonna KimFergus BrignallRodrigo Canas

Experimental
4 minutes 18 seconds
July 4, 2025
0 GBP
United Kingdom
United Kingdom
English
Digital HD 1920×1080, 24 fps
16:9
Colour
 Screenings / Awards

RCA 2025: Festival of Communication
London, United Kingdom
July 16, 2025
World Premiere, Official Selection

Rome Prisma Film Awards
Monthly Picks


The Shape of Sound (2025)







Research and process

   
Research paper on the project can be found here.
This experimental research project proposes a multisensory model of communication to address critical miscommunications in medical diagnoses, creating a more inclusive healthcare dialogue. At the heart of this research lies an inquiry into how individuals from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds might express their sensations through onomatopoeic and imitative sounds, alongside professionally-informed interpretative movement. Thus, it aims to more accurately visualise and materialise patients’ sensory and emotional experiences.

In order to address systemic disparities, this project utilises participatory research methodologies, proposing a real life experience-driven medical communication model in response to structural inequalities, limited consultation time, and individual difficulties in expression. Ultimately, this project envisions a positive, measurable impact on diagnostic accuracy and treatment experiences, aiding in the creation of a more equitable healthcare system.

Keywords:
multisensory communication / inclusivity / sensory expression / cultural diversity / structural
inequity / healthcare communication / diagnostic accuracy


Research Paper, 17 July 2025
Dahee Han




I. Participatory Workshop  

Phase 1: Recognising & Respecting - The differences & The universality


Participants were encouraged to vocalise onomatopoeic and imitative expressions of sensation and general pain. This exercise aimed to foster an understanding and appreciation for how these expressions are uniquely interpreted across diverse cultures, while simultaneously identifying universal patterns shared among participants. This phase began with cross-cultural onomatopoeia comparisons and mapping symptom and sensation descriptors to sound.


Phase 2: Expressing & Speculating - 
Sound Visualisation


In this phase, participants were invited to visualise the described or imagined sounds of pain and sensation. The primary goal was to investigate the relationship between auditory and visual forms of pain, drawing directly upon the Bouba-Kiki effect. 

Activities included Sound Pairing, where participants matched presented sounds to symptom and sensation descriptions, and Sound Visualising, where they were prompted to "Create a visual representation of the sound you created, using the provided materials (clay, wire, colour pens, and string)." 

By leveraging the Bouba-Kiki theory, we explored how auditory representations of embodied sensation might correspond to particular visual characteristics, ultimately contributing to the development of a multisensory language for embodied. communication.






II. Film Development

Through the medium of film, I aim to move beyond information transfer, guiding viewers towards an experiential understanding of the subjective experience of pain and sensation.Unlike text or static images, the dynamism of movement and sound allows the audience to form empathy and multisensorily 'feel' embodied pain. This aligns with Leavy (2020)'s concept of 'experiential connection,' a key characteristic of arts-based research.

Furthermore, from a hermeneutic phenomenological perspective, my work does not present definitive 'answers', but rather invites viewers to interpret and assign meaning to the sensory expressions within the piece in their own unique ways. This approach is to respect the inherent ambiguity and complexity of the pain experience, opening up possibilities for diverse interpretations.



Storyboard for The Shape of Sound
By Dahee Han

Film Structure Development


One particularly interesting feedback from the workshop shaped the film's structure: "When I was asked to vocalise muscle pain, I felt like it was more related to breathing in, whilst I was more breathing out to describe stomach pain as a release." This interesting observation underscored a previously unexplored relationship between pain expression and breathing, suggesting a new avenue for further investigation.

Additionally, the research film specifically examined nociceptive pain (abdominal/visceral pain and muscle/somatic pain) and related sensations, informed by categories advised by Dr. Tracey Walden, and aligned with the McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ) and WHO ICD-11 guidelines (WHO, n.d.). The final film integrates both the structured MPQ descriptors and more detailed pain descriptions for its two chapters, allowing for a multifaceted representation of embodied pain.

Embodied Language 
(Speculative + Experimental Approach)


The Prompt:
In this phase, the collected sound data served as a core prompt for developing an embodied language of pain. This process was driven by a speculative and experimental approach, aiming to translate abstract sensory experiences into tangible artistic forms.

The sound data specifically informed the development of:
- Movement language
- Music for the film

This development was crucial to gain a better understanding of the auditory-kinesthetic relationship in pain expression, and to explore how cross-modal correspondences (drawing upon insights from the Bouba-Kiki effect) can be leveraged to create a more comprehensive and empathetic language for communicating embodied pain.




Making-of video and photos from the filmmaking process of
The Shape of Sound





Implications and significance


The implications of this research are significant for envisioning a more equitable and human-centered healthcare system, as the developed multisensory model, by providing alternative avenues for pain communication (specifically sound and movement), holds the potential to enhance patient-clinician communication through a shared language that transcends conventional verbal and professional jargon, leading to more nuanced understanding, improved diagnostic accuracy, and tailored treatment. This model can also promote empathy and shared understanding among clinicians and caregivers, offering a more profound insight into patients' realities than traditional reports. 

Furthermore, by focusing on individual expression and acknowledging the totality of human experience, this model offers a direct response to address systemic inequities like structural inequalities, limited consultation time, and difficulties in verbal expression, thereby creating the way for truly inclusive care. Lastly, this study may contribute new knowledge to pain science, arts
in health, and qualitative research methodology by advancing theoretical and methodological understanding through a Practice as Research (PaR) and Arts-Based Research (ABR) framework, proposing innovative ways of conceptualising and researching embodied experience and cross-modal communication.




Research Paper



FundingThis research was funded by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor’s International Scholarship and the Varley Memorial Award.

AcknowledgementsI would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr Cecilia Wee, and Dr Bella Day, for their support, advice and feedback throughout the research development journey. I would also like to thank all the workshop participants for their insightful contributions during the sessions, and to Dr Tracey Walden for her expert guidance and advice on the medical aspects of this project.



Gallery


Screening at the BFI NFT3
Screening at the BFI NFT6
Photography by Abodid Sahoo
Photography by Abodid Sahoo
Photography by Abodid Sahoo
Photography by Abodid Sahoo
©2026 Dahee Han. All rights reserved.