Translation as Social & Aesthetic Practice

Curriculum Description:

In a world of hardening borders and contested spaces, translation means more than just the unimpeded movement from one language or another. This Nonsite Curriculum presses at the limits of what “translation” is and can do. As artists, writers, activists and citizens, we are translating all the time: between media, archives, audiences, and communities. Smooth transmission tends to be frustrated, however, often making social antagonisms legible. How do our various projects negotiate this frustration and this legibility, while activating material in the spaces between languages and cultures: not only texts, images and artifacts, but also borders, histories, documents, and even policy? And how does the translator-citizen inhabit those spaces, readying our attention, as migrating social imaginaries lead the way toward new forms of thought and action?

“Translation as Social and Aesthetic Practice” addresses these questions and the stakes they raise through presentations, plays, readings, talks and discussions.

The curriculum is open to everyone at all levels of involvement, including the planning of future events.