EVA International is delighted to announce details for the launch of Dhá Theanga – a new platform of multi-language audio responses which have been developed in relation to the 39th EVA International exhibition programme. They will all be available on EVA’s website from 19th November 2020.
The 39th EVA International takes its reference from the “Golden Vein’, a 19th-century descriptor for the agricultural bounty of the Limerick region, and seeks to address ideas of land and its contested values in the context of Ireland today; extending to broader questions of how we relate to the land in terms of ideology, identity, and resource.
The Dhá Theanga project has engaged with local multi-linguists in Limerick to explore a creative mediation of the exhibition programme that has resulted in audio responses in the languages of Nigerian Pidgin English, Catalan, Polish and Irish. The project has sought to both expand EVA’s reach to language communities other than English, while also giving evidence and opportunity to the creative language abilities that exist within the local community of Limerick. It is part of an international partnership between EVA and MagiC Carpets, a Creative Europe platform which creates opportunities for emerging artists to embark on journeys with local artists and local communities.
Local participants include Ajibola S. Abiodun, a creative writer and blogger; Marta Giralt, Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and Spanish in the School of Modern Languages, University of Limerick; Justyna Cwojdzińska, a theatre performer, cultural activist and founder and artistic director of Polish Arts Festival in Limerick; and Liam Murray, Senior Lecturer in French and Language Technologies at the University of Limerick.
The responses have been created to reflect personal connections that participants have made with the artworks, thematics and exhibiting spaces during their engagement. Each audio piece has been developed and produced in collaboration with Grey Heron Media, award winning audio and film producers based in Kilfinane in county Limerick, whose projects are rooted in community and informed by location.
Director of EVA International, Matt Packer says: “Dhá Theanga is an important project for EVA International, continuing our commitment to thinking outside the box and seeking opportunities for making our work (and contemporary arts more generally) accessible to new publics. At a time of lockdowns and travel restrictions, when the world seems to have shrunken, the contributors in the Dhá Theanga project reminds us of how we can continue to connect to different language communities, while fostering curiosity and creativity in language interpretation.”
This project is part of the MagiC Carpets Platform co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. Dhá Theanga is an EVA Better Words initiative, which empowers new forms of access and engagement with contemporary art in a bid to overcome some of the access barriers surrounding language that can often limit the broader engagement with contemporary art.
