Foci

Focus Interlanguages

Grafik Zwischensprachen
© Julia Praschma

Hülshoff Castle - however firmly it stands - has long moved in intermediate zones: between city and country, between private and public, between old and new.

The focus Interlanguages reminds us that the border BETWEEN never belongs to just one or the other, but to both. So, is a boundary then a boundary at all?

On the one hand, this applies to the separation between the arts. And here the Center is determined to find strong literature above all where authors, individually or collectively, look beyond the edge of the discipline, where they connect and ally with dancers, performers, musicians, orchestras or choirs, with visual artists, video artists, activists, social projects.

In addition to this interlanguage of arts and society, the Center for Literature also wants to represent our diverse, multilingual society. Never has only one language been spoken. The task for a literary institution of the future must therefore be to make offers in several languages. Here we follow texts and authors and take up what is already emerging, or support the emergence of new concepts and help to implement them.

A radio play with surtitles in three languages? A collective writing project with six people from at least six countries and six languages? Oh yes, please! An evening of poetry in sign language? Overdue to let some people participate in readings at all - and others in the beauty of a Hilde Domin poem in sign language. How much more concrete does sign language make poetry? And where is a gesture in space more poetic than poetry in words? Or do they not compete anyway, but complement each other and meet just there, in the intermediate language?

With such questions we have arrived at the subject area of translation. And translation is, after all, the parade case of intermediate languages: How many times could we translate a good poem into a single language alone? Each time it would change again. And how can we, through exercises in translating words, again convey the social positions of one group to another and in their language?

So WHY WAIT? TRANSLATE!