The online event “Language, Technology, Power”, took place on 29 August and brought together three artists from the Fund’s network—translator Wirunwan Victoria Pitaktong, photographer Sofiane Bakouri, and visual artist Alexis Villanueva Niebles—to share their experiences and reflections on issues surrounding language and technology in relation to access and sustainable artistic networks.
Cover: from the series "TikTok on Tibetan Plateau " by photographer and 2022 Seed Awardee, Xiangyu Long.
“We're all translated beings, right?” — Wirunwan Victoria Pitaktong
Featuring
Wherever we are in the world, our languages are a part of what makes us human. As Sofiane Bakouri shared during our recent "Seeing Like a Fund" event, “Language, Technology, Power”, the language you speak is more than how you express your ideas, it’s a connection to culture, history and identity. For Sofiane, the Amazigh language is also a part of his relationship to nature, and to his family. Throughout his education though, and once he began working as a photographer, other languages imposed themselves, each tied to a different layer of history; Arabic, French, and finally English – the lingua franca of the international cultural sector.
English has become a vital skill for artists working internationally. As Wirunwan Victoria Pitaktong explained, fluency in English brings with it significant social capital and access, and facilitates communication across many different contexts. This access presents issues, however, for those who are not able to speak English. As our final speaker, Alexis Villanueva Niebles shared, access to English education is closed tied to socioeconomic privilege, without which it becomes harder to acquire fluency. For arts funders like the Prince Claus Fund, who conduct their work in English, this communication barrier becomes a barrier to inclusivity.
New technologies, particularly machine translation and generative AI, offer accessible ways for artists to produce text in English, bridging the linguistic gap and allows non-English speakers space within a global dialogue. Our discussion centred on the ways that these technologies open up new spaces of possibility. We should be careful however, to trust to them too much. Beyond the imperfectness of the translation, Alexis reminded us that language technologies are often weak or non-existent for indigenous languages spoken by millions, while Wirunwan shared the challenges of working digitally in her native Thai.
Ultimately, the role of translators is not just to be a bridge between different languages, but between different ways of understanding the world. Translation is required for non-English speaking artists to access global resources, but so is empathy, understanding and flexibility.
Watch the recording of “Language, Technology, Power” to hear Sofiane, Wirunwan and Alexis on cultural translation, the limitations of technology, and how arts funding can be transformative for everyone.
Watch the recording now!
About Seeing Like a Fund
"Seeing Like a Fund" is an event series by the Prince Claus Fund, which brings together cultural changemakers from the Fund’s network to critically examine vital issues shaping how culture is supported globally, sparking new ways of thinking about and doing funding.
