Langue de feu / Zunge aus Feuer – Kinship 2

This lecture-performance explores the theme of kinship and the urgent need to share, convey and translate things spontaneously. And it does so at a time when both artificial intelligence and fascism pose a common threat to friendship, languages and translation.

“Translation ‘betrays’ the source language and ‘decentres’ the target language,” wrote Souleyman Bachir Diagne. For us, however, it also means discovering a multitude of approaches to the living world and expanding our affinities, our friendships and the art of forming connections: for we must overcome language barriers, draw closer to one another, open ourselves to the other and build a bridge between language and worldview.

Who translates what? Into which language is it translated? What could be better than a friend who translates for a friend?

To remain connected to our languages, our fellow human beings and the world around us, we should translate in order to preserve the plurality of languages. For if language is impoverished, so too is our life. If we lack the words to describe reality, it disappears bit by bit. Let us allow ourselves to borrow words from one language into another, and let us practise collective translation, however imperfect it may be.