Word turner 02

Word Turner is an interpretation of the ancient Sumerian word emebala which means "to interpret" or "to translate"–'eme' (meaning "tongue" or "language") and 'bala' (meaning "to turn").

Many of my sound and audio-visual works focus on creating speculative and unlikely meetings. I use interviews, conversations, field recordings, and procedural sound composition as the building blocks for digital instruments and unexpected dialogues. My ongoing exploration of language and translation is driven by a desire to examine the relationship between dominant and non-dominant languages at both the individual and societal levels.

For the Word Turner 02 project, I interviewed individuals from various linguistic minorities living in Glasgow. This included a French speaker, an Urdu speaker, an Arabic speaker, and a Scots speaker, among others. I asked them the same questions about migration, intergenerational memory, belonging, and identity, discussing memories related to language and singing the "Happy Birthday" song. I recorded these conversations in the participants' respective languages, along with their English translations.

The steel sculpture, which mediates the voices of the interviewees, resembles a round table, reflecting the conversational setting where most discussions took place—often at the participants' kitchen tables. This design conveys the intention to bring the voices together in a domestic setting, while also acknowledging that these conversations rarely enter the public realm on equal terms.

The voices of the participants resonate through the disc surface, acquiring an ethereal quality as a quiet musical composition plays alongside their voices, influenced by the notes they produce while speaking. The resulting sound work fosters a speculative conversation about the languages we inherit, the languages we actively use, and the politics of place-making.

I exhibited Word Turner 02 at Studio Pavilion (2022) under curation of Laura Plant, and at KIOSK, curated by Jamie Dyer.

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Word Turner 02 was shown in Studio Pavilion (2022) curated by Laura Plant and KIOSK curated by Jamie Dyer, funded by Creative Scotland.