Transartation workshop- Research and involvement

Transartation
12th April 2017
http://transartation.co.uk/

I attended the exhibition of 'Transartation' to view the works and take part in a workshop. The exhibition's setting (St Mary's works) was almost artistic itself. The old walls, run down floor and historical past gave the exhibition space a sense of belonging due to the concept of translation and past. The work within the exhibition varied greatly. There were many works that interested me, mainly due to the text aspects of almost all the pieces. George Szirtes and Clarissa Upchurch's work was of specific interest due to the visual and text quality. The series of monoprints entitled 'cloud' by Upchurch are paired with poetry and writing by Szirtes to create a story board like effect.

 The workshop regarded poetry and the translation of such with consideration of image along the way. The workshop began with an introductory talk from Eugenia Loffredo, speaking of her own work within poetry, translation and visual art combinations. The poem that she focused upon was Giuseppe Ungaretti', 'L'Allegria' 'Tramonto' 1916. This poem was of specific interest due to the many translation qualities, including ambiguity of words when in translation.

Il carnato del cielo

sveglia oasi

al nomade d'amore

English translation by Diego Bastianutti 

Heaven's Blush 

awakens oases

in the nomad of love 

We then used this poem to individually develop our own 'translation'. These were to focus loosely around the original poem. I wanted to ensure that the translation process was the main focus within mine and also the history behind the work. We developed the poems visually also to accompany our own writing. 

Own translated version with outer influences- 

1997 

The year translating 

From cultural heights

No flesh of difference 

The modern nomad

How might?

Re-work the past

Self-indulgent creativity 

We are to awake the oasis

Or we will find fear

In dust 

Visual reflection of the poetry. With a great interest in the layering of such due to translation and re translation. This paired with understanding often forms the bases of text work within art. Regenerating words for different uses and allowing them to speak for their own artistic quality, or using them to portray a wider theme or issue.

This then developed to collage and the influence words have within newspapers and publications. Arguably, this is similar to poetry, a type of writing that is aiming to influence someone in a chosen way. This concept allowed me to immerse myself in news papers and repeated headlines reading of 'brexit' and governing issues laced with humanitarian problems. I used these papers to produce collages with the poetry and my own poem in mind. 

The weaving of the latter piece was inspired by the layering of the writing and translation. The way that words and language are used together can create a complicated situation that may or may not make sense. Therefore, this is why parts of the weave read properly and others do not. The workshop progressed for me to produce a more colourful piece inspired by the setting. This work is brightly painted acrylic with overwritten poetry. I then scrunched this work up to highlight the folds with white chalk. This was to reflect the setting that we found ourselves in together interpreting the poetry.

All of the work was produced as a result of of the poetry. Mainly the poetry that was originally shown to us. Throughout the workshop we interacted with other artists and translators who attended. It was interesting to interact with these people and see their interpretation of the poetry and surrounding themes.  However, an observation I did have was the lack of participation, there were only 8 people who attended this free workshop with resident artists. Although others did take place on other days, I was shocked to not see more people taking part. This seems to be a problem with things such as this, the word spreading to encourage participation. Further to this, 2pm on a Wednesday isn't a very accessible time. Workshops such as this should be encouraged greatly, however a general lacking of participation is routed from childhood as many educational aspects of life become a chore.