“Teach me a word you’re afraid to forget”
Selected transcripts
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Curatorial Text
Aga Paulina Młyńczak’s ‘Teach Me a Word You’re Afraid To Forget’ is a complex sound art project that involved a participatory word collection via recorded conversations with my neighbours. In it, the artist seeks to build an interactive linguistic map of the Govanhill neighbourhood of Glasgow based on her invitation to participants to ‘teach me a word you are afraid to forget’ in any language they speak - a model which she hopes to replicate inerntaionally. The map intends to investigate historical concepts of translation and the dominance of ‘national languages’ like English. She aims to make visible the many languages living side by side, overlapping and intermingling amongst a group of literal neighbours. The project will remain online, where participants can currently record their own submission at https://www.teachmeaword.eu/ . The physical iteration for the Flock Circumstance exhibition shows a sound sculpture built from these words and personal definitions, which Młyńczak has translated visually in a series of analogue photographs.
Nell Cardozo
© AGA PAULINA MŁYŃCZAK 2024
