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Helen Jamieson 30-05-2017
Unaussprechbarlich explores the painful, hilarious and life-changing experience to communicate in a language other than one’s mother-tongue.
Building on Annie Abraham’s book “From estranger to e-stranger”, Annie Abrahams and Helen Varley Jamieson developed a performance based on their experiences of learning a new language in order to live in a foreign country. The artists are both migrants - Annie travelled from the Netherlands to live in France 30 years ago, and Helen came from New Zealand to Germany in 2010. Annie learned some German in high school and Helen is learning it now.
In the context of increasing global migration, this project speaks to the need for everyone to have a better understanding of the linguistic challenges faced by migrants and how this impacts on their integration into a new culture and society. Different languages express different world views. Speaking a new language, you become a different person. Just as translated poetry or dubbed films become new poems and films, thoughts and ideas are transformed when translated to another language and culture. This is both a challenge and an opportunity: as migrants we must reinvent ourselves within a new language and culture.
Unaussprechbarlich is a performance that negotiates meaning beyond the monolingual condition and wants to provoke public participation in a conversation about a world where we are all nomads, and where no one speaks with only one tongue.
Helen Jamieson: , 30-05-2017, in: Archive of Digital Art Unaussprechbarlich explores the painful, hilarious and life-changing experience to communicate in a language other than one’s mother-tongue.
Building on Annie Abraham’s book “From estranger to e-stranger”, Annie Abrahams and Helen Varley Jamieson developed a performance based on their experiences of learning a new language in order to live in a foreign country. The artists are both migrants - Annie travelled from the Netherlands to live in France 30 years ago, and Helen came from New Zealand to Germany in 2010. Annie learned some German in high school and Helen is learning it now.
In the context of increasing global migration, this project speaks to the need for everyone to have a better understanding of the linguistic challenges faced by migrants and how this impacts on their integration into a new culture and society. Different languages express different world views. Speaking a new language, you become a different person. Just as translated poetry or dubbed films become new poems and films, thoughts and ideas are transformed when translated to another language and culture. This is both a challenge and an opportunity: as migrants we must reinvent ourselves within a new language and culture.
Unaussprechbarlich is a performance that negotiates meaning beyond the monolingual condition and wants to provoke public participation in a conversation about a world where we are all nomads, and where no one speaks with only one tongue.
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