(December, 2023.)
From one space to another. Across different languages. Across history. From visual art to literature. From textbooks to rooms full of paper fortune tellers. What is the thing that stays? What survives the act of translation?
‘Þýðing’ is meaning not lost in translation, the title being the Icelandic word ‘Þýðing’ which can refer to both translation and meaning. The installation itself is also a “translation.” It’s building blocks the same language textbooks used to create ‘I don’t know why I just had to’ (2023) another installation created and shown at Tenjinyama Art Studio in Sapporo, Japan.
‘Þýðing’ the thing not lost in translation - is the thing itself. A bed, a house scattered with paper diamonds. Presented with no written supplemental material or explanation (a continuation from ‘I don’t know I just had to’, 2023.) The title, and the bizarreness of the encounter, baiting the audience to seek answers regarding the intention, the meaning. The only explanation available: reflection and discussion.
Since all the text is useless, for the duration of the short exhibit the artist was present to greet and available to talk to visitors downstairs. A flood of paper upstairs - it cannot explain itself. Mysterious. Messy. A living thing made from books and paper.
Though still the same project, and comprised of the same objects as ‘I don’t know I just had to,’ the thing surrounding the installation - Jensens Hús, a historic house in Eskifjörður (generously supplied by the Fjarðabyggð Art Center for the exhibition along with partial funding for the residency in Sapporo,) - it alters the feeling of the “original.” The differences so stark in the works "translation" from Japan to Iceland that it could not be said to be the same work.
