off-page 24 visual poetry exhibition
In April 2023, I had the pleasure of being one of the featured artists in the off-page 24 visual poetry exhibition that took place in Many Studios, Glasgow, in collaboration with 12 other artists.
From the Introduction to the Gallery Guide by CD Boyland and Julie Laing:
”off-page 24 is the second of our annual anthology-exhibitions which explore the interplay between the read, the seen and the heard. […] This year’s edition of off-page brings together thirteen creatives with a shared curiosity about visual poetry and the poetic visual. The resulting show is ‘poetic’ in sensibility and would not have been realised without collaboration. […] Together, we have been motivated by fresh encounters that foster interrogation of our relationships with writing, art and performance, and the transformation of place into poetry into place. The ‘living pages’ we experience here at Many Studios resonate with the synergies, tensions and growth that come from supportive communal reflection, unconstrained by the imposition of definition.”
My work: “Translation” (glass container, handwritten text, 2024)
My piece is a reflection on bilingual poetry and the expansive properties of the translation process. I write in Macedonian and English. The poem inscribed on the glass spheres is entitled Маска Жена, or Wax Woman that is written twice over, in both languages. The original poem is written in Macedonian on the glass sphere, suspended in the glass vase, and made to appear projected onto second sphere, shown above, in English. To ‘translate’ is to ‘carry across’, from translatio. This is what this piece represents, the act of "carrying across" the original poem into its new form. Often, the emphasis is placed on ‘the meaning that is lost’, or 'that which cannot be translated' in a translation. But there can be meaning to be gained. The original piece begins to amass authors as translations double, triple, and so forth. In this piece, as the poem is suspended in projected through glass, it compels the viewer to reflect on the process of translation as one of reflection, transparency, and expansion.
Photo: Miriam Ali
Photo: Julie Laing
