With Lorna Brown, Fauzia Rafique, Emilio Rojas
Surrey Art Gallery
Saturday October 15
2:30–4:30pm
To engage in the act of translation means to render significance, to transfer meaning from one language to another, to ‘carry across’, to encode and decode, to betray, to transmutate. Translation is a process that almost always involves loss, and often, substantial accumulations of meaning; it is an act that is commonly marked by unequal relationships of power. Artists have long seen themselves as translators of the world – especially of its accepted norms and hidden truths. Yet, due in part, to late 20th century globalization and partially due to the changing nature of global conflict, both of which has produced increased migration, mobility, and displacement, and thus resulted in significant cultural collisions and transformations across the globe.
These social transformations, along with a rich wellspring of practices and ideas associated with translation in the past century, are among the important factors that have resulted in translation becoming such a key subject for many artists at the beginning of the new century.
The title of the talk, Dislocutions, is borrowed from James Joyce and adapted by scholar-curator Sarat Maharaj; it is a term which refers to the uneven misshapen qualities of translation, and the double disruption of place and speech. The panel discussion ‘Dislocutions: a panel discussion on art and translation’ will ask questions about how translation has influenced recent visual art and writing practices in the context of Vancouver’s Lower Mainland.
Jordan Strom, Curator of Exhibitions and Collections will moderate the discussion.
Lorna Brown works between art making, curating, and writing to explore interests in social phenomena such as boredom, administrative structures and systems, and the dynamics of public spaces. Recent exhibitions include The Chatter of Culture, Artspeak, Vancouver; Threshold (cont.) at the Koerner Library at UBC. Recent independent curatorial and editorial projects include Group Search: art in the library and Ruins in Process: Vancouver Art in the Sixties, an online digital archive.
Fauzia Rafique is a Vancouver-based writer of fiction and poetry. Her English and Punjabi writings have been published in Canada and Pakistan. Print titles include the English and Punjabi publications of Skeena (Surrey 2011, Lahore 2007), a chapbook of English and Punjabi poetry ‘Passion fruit-Tahnget Phal’ (Surrey 2011), and an anthology Aurat Durbar: The Court of Women: writings by Women of South Asian Origin (Sumach Press, Toronto 1995).
Emilio Rojas was born in Mexico City and is currently resides in Vancouver, Canada. Rojas is a multimedia and performance artist whose works explore the relation between the artist and audience, with many of his works involving interaction and exchange of roles with the viewer. Rojas’s artwork, marked by their creative use of diverse found materials, seeks to re-evaluate politics, ritual, gender, secrecy in communication, and translation. Rojas has exhibited in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Austria, England, Germany, Italy and Australia.
This panel discussion is presented in conjunction with three visual art exhibitions addressing language, translation and identity: Brendan Fernandes: Disscontinent, Finding Correspondences (with works by Digital Natives, Soheila K. Esfahani, Mark Neufeld, Emilio Rojas, Tony Romano, and Ming Wong), and Dipna Horra: Dhunia–Part One.
Surrey Art Gallery is located at 13750 – 88 Avenue, Surrey, BC, Canada.
604-501-5566
www.surrey.ca/arts
Mon & Fri 9am-5pm | Tues-Thur 9am-9pm | Sat 10am-5pm | Sun Noon-5pm | Closed holidays
The Surrey Art Gallery acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council and City of Surrey for their continued support.
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