TO REMOVE TO ANOTHER PLACE...

"...come back to me, my language, come back cacao, grigri, solitaire, ciseau the scissor-bird..." Derek Walcott

The literal meaning of translation in this context refers to a mathmatical function, the mapping of an object, using co-ordinates, from one location onto another. But it also evokes transportation and migration, the way peoples, cultures, traditions and objects have travelled - or been removed - from one place to another.

Like the cross-pollination that occurs when a bee flies from flower to flower, across gardens, hedges and fields, so as cultures and languages move and meet, they affect one another and new hybrids occur. But parts of the original meaning may well be lost. In every culture and language some elements remain untranslatable, perhaps only truly understood by natives in the original context.

At the beginning of the 21st Century, the cultural and political fallout from colonial times is still very much in evidence within both the colonised and the colonising cultures. Despite inequalities there is always a two-way influence. Just examine our food, our music, our sports and our language for evidence of the mixed bag that makes up 'Britishness'.

Simryn Gill is an artist of South Asian descent, born in Malaysia and now living in Australia. Much of her work centres on hybrid identities and the rich mix of influences from art, ecology and literature, to which she has been exposed.

Simryn Gill - "Lee Weng Choy on MRT Train, Singapore", 1996. (1)

• What are your favourite foods? Can you trace their origins?
• Can you think of any words, expressions, feelings, ideas or cultural experiences which are untranslatable?
• In what ways have aliens been depicted in films?
• C.18th writer Daniel Defoe defined the British as "this mongrel breed". What did he mean then? What might it mean now?
• Research and compare the ways refugees and migrants have been portayed a) in painting b) in the news media.

DISCUSS

RESEARCH

BRAINSTORM

DESCRIBE

COMPARE

Krzysztof Wodiczko - 'Alien Staff', 1996 (1)

"...Dislocation is the norm rather than an aberration in our time..." Eva Hoffman

Multicultural populations exist in virtually every city in the world. They have done for centuries. Overseas settlers have been coming to London for 15,000 years! Populations can be very mixed but sometimes they are segregated ethnically and economically with cultural, social and religious differences provoking resentment and racism.

We hear and read about 'economic migrants' 'asylum seekers' and 'illegal aliens' but where do these phrases come from and what do they actually mean? When scientists leave Britain for better paid work abroad, it's called the Brain Drain not economic migration, but what's the difference?

Krzysztof Wodiczko is a Polish artist who now lives in the USA and works internationally. Working in public spaces, using photography and video, he has addressed the question of being an alien or outsider. Through his large scale projections onto public monuments he exposes power relations within societies and between countries.