Archive for the ‘Brussels’ Category
Bains Connective Come Together
Bains Connective is a multidisciplinary arts laboratory based in Brussels. They recently published the ‘Come Together’ issue in its Thematics series, featuring a series of essays and interviews on different approaches to becoming a community. Find out more about Bains Connective and their work on their brand-new website. I took care of the proofreading for ‘Come Together’.
Margarita Production
Margarita Production, an ‘alternative management office’ based in Brussels, recently celebrated its 10th birthday! And on this occasion they published a retrospective catalogue of their work over the past decade, featuring a wide range of materials to illustrate the various projects they’ve worked on in theatre, dance and more. I took care of the translations and the proofreading for the catalogue.
Watteau: The Music Lesson
The exhibition Antoine Watteau (1684-1721): The Music Lesson runs at the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels from 8 February until 12 May. I worked on the translation of the English audioguide.You can find more info on the exhibition on the Bozar website. The leaflet below shows a detail of La Partie carrée.
Jules Wabbes, Furniture Designer
Jules Wabbes (1919-1974) is one of the leading Belgian furniture designers of the post-war period. An exhibition devoted to his work is currently running at the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels. The show runs until Sunday 13 January and was curated by Marie Ferran-Wabbes and Iwan Strauwen in a scenography by Jurgen Persijn. I proofread the exhibition catalogue, which is published by A+editions and Bozar Books. I also proofread the short visitor’s guide.
Words from the Cage aux Ours
Published by the non-profit organisation Constant, Mots de la Cage aux Ours/ Woorden uit de Berenkuil gathers colloquialisms used in and around Place Verboeckhovenplein in the Brussels commune of Schaerbeek (FR) or Schaarbeek (NL). Nicknamed the ‘bear cage’ or ‘bear pit’, this popular neighbourhood is home to various immigrant communities, and the languages covered in the dictionary thus include, besides French and Dutch, Albanian and Arabic, Cameroonian and Chinese, Lingala and Turkish, among others. Besides the ‘dictionary’ section in which the various terms are explained, the book also includes a number of texts on language and the neighbourhood. An English version of these texts is available on Constant’s website. I proofread all the English translations.
XX Models – Young Belgian Architecture
XX Models: Young Belgian Architecture is a small exhibition on Belgian architecture that will run until 25 November at the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels. The exhibition was curated by Marie-Cécile Guyaux and Iwan Strauwen. The catalogue is published by A+editions and BOZAR BOOKS. I contributed a couple of translations, and I also took care of revising the English.
What are my duties? A story to be confirmed
Five six-month residencies succeeded one another between 2008 and 2011 in a house in 1030 Brussels, part of a project commissioned by the non-profit arts lab nadine and entitled TBC: To Be Confirmed. Conceived and compiled by Rebecca Lenaerts, the small booklet What are my duties? A story to be confirmed collects interviews with the five artists and collectives that participated in the project. The booklet is published in Dutch, English and French. I took care of the English and French translations from the Dutch.
Belgian Architecture Beyond Belgium
The Belgian architecture review A+ is bringing out a special issue in English at the end of the month devoted entirely to ‘Belgian Architecture Beyond Belgium’.
This special issue provides the first overview of the export of Belgian architecture. It opens with a historical synthesis of Belgian architecture on the international stage in the 19th and 20th centuries. This is followed by three round-table discussions on the subject of Belgian architecture outside Belgium featuring key players in the field, whether architects, town planners, engineers or academics. Twenty-five international projects by Belgian architectural firms are then given concise presentations illustrated with photographs and plans.
My fellow translator Gregory Ball provided the English translation of the introduction, and I translated all other materials from Dutch and French into English. I was also responsible for proofreading the entire issue.
Daan van Golden: Apperception at WIELS
Apperception, an exhibition of works by the Dutch artist Daan van Golden, opened today at WIELS, the contemporary art centre in Brussels. The exhibition provides an overview of van Golden’s work from the 1960s until today. It mostly consists of paintings, although it does also include a series of van Golden’s photographs of his daughter Diana. Apperception runs until 29 April 2012.
The painting pictured below on the cover of the visitor’s guide is entitled White Painting and dates from 1966. I was responsible for the English translation of the visitor’s guide.
Grand Hotel Europa, a tribute to literary translators
A lot of people were at the Flagey arts centre in Brussels this past Friday for Grand Hotel Europa, a tribute to literary translators organized by the European Platform for Literary Translation PETRA. And although I’m not a literary translator, I was one of those attending the event.
The evening started with a panel discussion featuring the Croatian writer Dubravka Ugresic, the Japanese-to-Dutch translator Luk van Haute, and the Arabic-to-English translator and researcher Alice Guthrie. They discussed various aspects of translation, from the changes made by translators to the original and the differences between “big” and “small” languages with regards to the book market. It was an interesting warm-up to the main event, which was held in the main hall.
The main event began with a brief talk entitled “Found in Translation” by the American writer Michael Cunningham, who talked of the writer, translator and reader each as translators in their own right: the writer translating his ideas into words, the translator turning one language into another, and readers each translating the words into their own mental images. Cunningham’s talk was followed by a live translation into three languages (French, Dutch, and a third one I couldn’t recognize) of a short text from Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet: their translations were shown live on a big screen in real time, and it was interesting and amusing seeing the differences in their approaches, even on such a short text. Alberto Manguel then gave a talk entitled “Translation: A Miracle” in which he gave an overview of translation in South America from La Malinche (who acted as Cortes’s translator in the early 16th century) until today. Dubravka Ugresic, a Croatian writer living in the Netherlands, finished off the evening with a talk entitled “Out of Nation Zone”, a witty and perceptive view of translation from the perspective of a woman writing in a “small” language. I left Flagey with some food for thought.
PaTRiCK LeNNoN TRaNSLaTioN 