The Organizing Committee is pleased to announce the following Artistic Initiative as part of the conference program:
மொழிபெயர்ப்பு/the nature of difference
By Hephzibah Israel (University of Edinburgh)
The exhibition comprises a series of 20 panels of individual text works by Hephzibah Israel produced in collaboration with Fraser Muggeridge Studio. Each panel comprises black print on coloured card (dimensions 90cm X 60cm) that can be mounted on either fixed or movable panels or on plain wall.
மொழிபெயர்ப்பு/the nature of difference is an exhibition that explores through multilingual poetry the conceptual synergies between translation and the crossing of borders as experiences of living between languages. Using words and scripts from three languages, English, Tamil and Hindi, the panels explore various dimensions of border-crossings, both visible and invisible borders, conceptual and linguistic borders, and cultural and political. It draws on Israel’s academic work on literary translation, translation and religion and postcolonial approaches to translation.
The exhibition highlights the extent to which translation can emphasise as much as blur borders and that it may articulate and regulate borders more forcefully or enable the co-existence of multiple voices, positions and ontologies. The panels invite the viewer to explore the extent to which translation juxtaposes vastly different entities to reflect on the nature of sameness and difference put in sharp relief by the existence of borders. Several pieces comment in particular on the discourse on migrants in Europe and, in particular, the anti-refugee rhetoric in British politics over the recent past. The exhibition is designed to allow viewers to explore the interconnectedness of language and space as they play out in acts of border crossings or indeed in the refusal to cross borders. Translation challenges invisible borders as much as visible ones. By montaging languages, with text not always translated, the exhibition draws attention to nonlinear, multi-layered movements that challenge the monolingualism implied by borders. The exhibition suggests that translation holds out the promise of the possibility of rejecting borders.
The exhibition could stay up during the entire conference for participants to take in as and when they find time between sessions. Additionally, on one of the evenings, I could do a ‘poetry reading’ session followed by a Q&A and discussion on the themes of the exhibition, including using translation research creatively for the public outside academia.
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