How to Speak in Disguise

Every culture has its own way of hiding truths: euphemisms, metaphors, rituals, humor. From political restrictions to family taboos, language becomes a site of negotiation. This workshop explores how people encode, disguise, and reshape meaning when expression becomes difficult, treating “encryption” as both a linguistic invention and an emotional coping mechanism.

It focuses on how language itself evolves through play, encryption, translation, and silence. Participants are invited to create their own symbolic systems, codes, or alternative grammars to express feelings or ideas that resist articulation, those that are “unspeakable” or“untranslatable”.

Image credit: Yunyi Ye

About the workshop facilitator

Yunyi Ye is a cross-disciplinary artist and facilitator based in London. Her practice investigates how language, perception, and emotion operate as intertwined systems under disciplines. Trained in both fine art and linguistics, she approaches art-making as translation. Working across installation, drawing, and performative structures, she translates psychological and linguistic mechanisms into visual and spatial forms that question how we learn to feel, speak, and connect. Her recent works incorporate diagrammatic stages, fragmented scripts, and self-erasing materials. She explores art as a research method and connects these inquiries through workshops extending the inquiries into collective, embodied experience.

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About this series of events

Flowing through: a workshop festival

Monday 01 & Tuesday 02 December 2025

Curious about stepping into a live performance? Ever wanted to make your own mini-booklet? Or simply want to get lost in a new making process alongside other creatives?

This two day workshop festival at Two Temple Place is your chance to experiment, play, and discover new possibilities. Led by UAL students and staff these workshops will guide you through hands-on creative activities.

All the workshops respond to themes related to vulnerability, resilience, identity, and emotional well-being. Themes that form part of The Weight of Being exhibition taking place at Two Temple Place in January 2026.

Free and open to all. Booking essential.