Abstract This contribution studies silence in a primary care urgent waiting room (CAP, Catalonia) as an institutional atmosphere that organises attention, movement, and uncertainty. The inquiry is situated in a context where Catalan functions as a minoritised language and where language becomes part of the waiting room’s infrastructure: it shapes orientation, hesitation, and repair. Through situated listening sessions and bilingual fieldnotes (Catalan and English), the project documents micro-events that structure the room: the baseline murmur (remor), sustained whispering texture (xiuxiueig), the recorded screen voice calling numbers, the metallic click of a remote lock, and the buzzer and long sustained buzz when a door re-locks. One vignette centres on the announcement “Trenta-cinc, passa al box cinc” and the brief collective hesitation that follows when the announcement language is not shared, even though the number is visible on the screen. A second vignette traces how access is governed through timing and acoustics: the short opening window of the locked door, the pressure of the long buzz, and the return of quiet as enforced attention. Methodologically, the contribution proposes a small set of Catalan “listening operators” (remor, xiuxiueig, torn, contenció, among others) as repeatable prompts for writing fieldnotes and comparing listening sessions. Translation into English is treated as part of the analysis, foregrounding where institutional pressure and vulnerability are softened when situated knowledge is rendered in a standard academic register. The outcome is a systematic, transferable protocol for making silent, non-verbal governance in healthcare waiting rooms describable and discussable through artistic research.