Curatorial Texts written for Memory Effect, Murate Art District
The notion of translation as erasure.
Emma Miles, Solomiia Hrebeniak-Dubova, Catarina Mel
In exploring the larger questions of translation, one reflection that emerges is how a means for understanding can also be a means of erasure. This notion is connected to the concept of the untranslatable; ideas that can only be expressed through comparison or description.
Translation has been employed as a mechanism for the expansion of “modernity”, but in translating, true essence can fall victim to acts of disappearance. It is not just the primary intended meaning that can be lost, but worlds and ways of knowing. To translate can become complicit in the erasure, epistemicide and the loss of trajectories into the future.
In Lerato Shadi’s work, the lack of an English or Western language translation is intentional and impactful. This research additionally focuses on highlighting Setswana as its own entity rather than as one that needs to be translated and understood in a Western context.
Setswana Language
​Emma Miles, Solomiia Hrebeniak-Dubova, Catarina Mel
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The Setswana (also known as Tswana) language is one of the 11 official languages spoken in South Africa, and one of nine that bears the title indigenous languages chosen in the post-apartheid constitution. Setswana speakers from the fifth-largest language group in South Africa. The language is spoken by about 8% of the total population, which is more than 4 million people. It is more commonly spoken in the north-western parts of the country, near the border with Botswana.
Setswana is also Botswana’s national language and as much as 70% of Botswana’s population speak it. In addition, there are small groups that speak it in Namibia and Zimbabwe.