Suspended above the Children’s Reading Room at the Woodland Community Library, Phonic Bloom is a new sculpture that turns the sounds of human speech into art.
Created by Portland-based studio Superfab, the one-of-a-kind installation uses recycled book pages and natural dyes to form flowers, reeds, and leaves. Each piece represents the many ways people speak and connect across cultures and generations.
Turning Speech into Sculpture
The project was developed with guidance from linguist Janet Tom Cowal of Portland State University. Using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the artists mapped out the sounds in three major languages spoken in the Woodland area: Cowlitz Salish, Spanish, and English.
Each flower in the sculpture represents a single phoneme—the small building-block sounds of words, like the /b/ in “bee” or the /sh/ in “shoe.” Blended flowers mark shared sounds between languages, while white flowers reflect sounds from world languages beyond the three. Green leaves and reeds represent sounds not used at all.
A Palette with Local Roots
Colors were inspired by native plants in Southwest Washington, then linked to each language:
- Blue tones: Cowlitz Salish
- Yellow and orange tones: Spanish
- Red tones: English
The design invites visitors to see language not only as words, but as shapes, colors, and connections—a celebration of the diverse voices that shape Woodland.
Some flowers blend colors to show sounds shared by more than one language. White flowers represent sounds used in other world languages. Reeds mark spots where no sound is used in any of the three.
This chart shows the speech sounds used in Cowlitz Salish, Spanish, and English. It helped the artists plan the sculpture—deciding where to place each flower and how to color it based on the language it represents (see above for color key).
- Each flower shape = one sound
- Blended colors show shared sounds between languages
- White flowers show sounds used in other world languages
- Green leaves show sounds not used in any of the three
The sounds are also grouped by the way and where they are produced in the mouth, such as with the lips, tongue, or throat. This helped the team turn the invisible aspects of language into something visible and exploratory.
A Digital Companion from WSU Vancouver
To complement the artwork, Fall 2024 graduates of Washington State University Vancouver’s Digital Technology & Culture program created an interactive app as part of their senior capstone. Organized into four teams—Experience, Web, Social Media, and Design—students volunteered their time to give back to the community while practicing real-world skills.
Available on tablets at the library, the Phonic Bloom app offers an augmented reality experience where visitors can tap glowing flowers to hear language sounds, view short animations, and follow Bea the Bee as a guide.
Contributors included Mailei Brodniak, James Lesperance, Andrew Higgins, Courtney Minden, Caleb Stenberg, Andrew Truax, Zoee Lodge, Andrei Juego, Ryan Toedtli, Aaron Shannon, Cameron Dan, Austin Melo, Jenn Nguyen, Cuong Nguyen, Bea Calces, Rich Te, Trystahn Turner, and Evan Leyden.
Together, the students logged more than 600 hours, wrote over 2,000 lines of code, created 26 animations, and modeled 15 custom 3D assets—providing an additional way for kids, families, and visitors to connect with the sculpture. Learn more about their work on the student website.