With text by Lina Mounzer and Stefan Tarnowski

The video merely shows a color: purple, projected on a mirrored screen that allows the viewers to see their own reflection, to see themselves within the subtitled frame. The image is defined solely by what is heard: Lina Mounzer reading an excerpt from her essay, “War in Translation: Giving Voice to the Women of Syria,” on the act of translation as an internalized process; and Stefan Tarnowski describing the intricacies of translating subtitles for the anonymous film collective Abounaddara and their collaborative process. The voices are woven together with threads sampled from various essays, poems, and songs addressing the poetics of purple as a feeling. This immersive installation reflects on the role of the subtitle, the details lost in translation, and what additional elements and contradictions are created by the juxtaposition between subtitle and image.

Artist and musician Joe Namy's practice encompasses sound, its history, and impact on the built environment. Working collaboratively through public sculptures and performances, Namy’s work considers the social construction of sound and the political forces that enable its transmission. As well, the artist’s work critically engages with the gender dynamics of sound, migration patterns of instruments, and the translation between languages, between score and sound, and between instruments, and bodies in movement and dance.