Scenes of (Un-)translatability

The mediation of the complex geopolitical landscape, what Sarat Maharaj calls the "scene of translations", has long been a field of negotiation for artists whose practices lie outside hegemonic spheres. Yet while these artists draw from a global network of relationships, the products of their practices are largely translated and received in a Eurocentric cultural realm and deal in Western terminology. This approach to creolization that moves into a new "third space" creates a subversiveness that scratches at the edges of the nation state and finds expression in lived transnationality and queer self-image.

Scenes of (Un-)translatability investigates precisely this space of possibility, one that lies beyond Western codes and epistemologies. By referencing Benshi and Meddah performative narrative traditions and bringing them into the space of cinema, the limits of translatability and untranslatability can be collectively experienced through various spoken-word and performative acts.