Her Voice Couldn’t Be Heard examines how visual culture has historically contributed to the silencing of women, and how sound — or its absence — can reveal systems of power. Rather than focusing on women as silent, the project asks how art, domestic imagery, musical instruments, and aesthetic conventions have contributed to creating that silence. Using the 17th-century lute as a central symbol, I translate historical mechanisms of control into a contemporary sculptural installation and performance. By placing the lute inside a transparent, soundproof box layered with text from women’s protests, the work reflects on how female expression has been visible yet unheard over time.

In the Dutch Golden Age, the lute occupied a key role in the construction of feminine virtue. It was associated with refinement, emotional modesty, and controlled domesticity. Women were encouraged to play the lute within private interiors — spaces designed for supervision and moral discipline. In the artworks of Gerard ter Borch, Jan Steen, Frans van Mieris, Caspar Netscher, and Vermeer, women appear playing music not as autonomous performers but as figures embedded in moral narratives.

These interiors operate as ideological spaces where women’s cultural expression is allowed yet contained. The lute functions as a visual device that converts emotion into decorum and performance into obedience. Crucially, these paintings do not merely depict silence — they enact it through composition, framing, and symbolic objects. This research positions the lute not only as a musical instrument but also as a historical mechanism through which women’s voices were aesthetically staged yet socially muted.