To Make Words Become Things and not Events

35x42cm, c-print, series of 5, 2014

The work consists of images of my mother’s handwritten transcriptions of popular songs. She is a singer who, being non-english speaking, cannot understand the meaning of the original words and through this process of transcribing, the song’s lyrics become a new or imagined language.

A selection was made of the lyrics that refer to geographical locations. The different places are only evoked through a bastardised English and as such only a stereotype remains; an unreachable reference point. The intimate translation that unintentionally results, creates a new landscape, the words becoming things or signs of a place that exists only in personal dreams.

view of the installation: to make words become things and not events, bicycle, giovanni giaretta/renato leotta effetto majorana (la solfatara, recording of disappearance, function creep, amsterdam, nl photo: gert jan van rooij