DIALECT, LAND(E)SCAPE, CULTURE Natalia Sudova's research project within 'Chapter 5IVE' (Samir Bantal & Rem Koolhaas). Artists: Liza Rukavishnikova, Day Collective. Netherlands, Het Hem, 2022 |
This research project is dedicated to the open question of our attitude towards dialects and languages extinction. The process of dialects/languages extinction is accelerating every year.
Over the past century, around 400 dialects/languages have gone extinct. We see that global urbanization is changing many aspects of our rural livelihood; the language extinction is one of the aspects. On the one hand, there are many people among us who know several languages or dialects and therefore have the key to communicate with a large number of people or communities. On the other hand, dominant languages devour rarer groups of languages and dialects. When a dialect or language is lost, culture is lost. Because it's not just sentence-structure and grammar, language is history and discourse, customs and heritage. Written and spoken words are a way for values and traditions to be passed down for generations.
In the research, Sudova proposes to look at this process through an analysis of the close and intimate relationship between the landscape that forms dialects/languages and the dialects/languages that form the ways of thinking. And honestly answer to yourself: the question is whether you experience the disappearance of dialects as a rational and acceptable reality, or can a dialect extinction be a tragic human loss?
For these purposes, the visitor is invited to plunge into the world of a unique symbols, where each symbol is synonymous with the language. 13 scrolls of manuscripts were created by Elizaveta Rukavishnikova in Johannesburg, a cradle of humanity where, probably, some first language was invented. The beauty of the symbols encourages the viewer to respect and care for the complexity and details of languages and dialects. Admiration leads to fantasies of an absurd situation where the desire to preserve every dialect and language confronts us with the disappearance of all dominant languages. To comprehend it visitors will also be introduced to the "DAY Collective" (Dorota Radzimirska and Yulia Ratman) whitin performance Tête-à-Tête. This collective will suggest new modes of language, based on intuition, silence, imagination, and sensibility, allowing only the skin, which is the canvas, to communicate. There is only one rule — no words.
Over the past century, around 400 dialects/languages have gone extinct. We see that global urbanization is changing many aspects of our rural livelihood; the language extinction is one of the aspects. On the one hand, there are many people among us who know several languages or dialects and therefore have the key to communicate with a large number of people or communities. On the other hand, dominant languages devour rarer groups of languages and dialects. When a dialect or language is lost, culture is lost. Because it's not just sentence-structure and grammar, language is history and discourse, customs and heritage. Written and spoken words are a way for values and traditions to be passed down for generations.
In the research, Sudova proposes to look at this process through an analysis of the close and intimate relationship between the landscape that forms dialects/languages and the dialects/languages that form the ways of thinking. And honestly answer to yourself: the question is whether you experience the disappearance of dialects as a rational and acceptable reality, or can a dialect extinction be a tragic human loss?
For these purposes, the visitor is invited to plunge into the world of a unique symbols, where each symbol is synonymous with the language. 13 scrolls of manuscripts were created by Elizaveta Rukavishnikova in Johannesburg, a cradle of humanity where, probably, some first language was invented. The beauty of the symbols encourages the viewer to respect and care for the complexity and details of languages and dialects. Admiration leads to fantasies of an absurd situation where the desire to preserve every dialect and language confronts us with the disappearance of all dominant languages. To comprehend it visitors will also be introduced to the "DAY Collective" (Dorota Radzimirska and Yulia Ratman) whitin performance Tête-à-Tête. This collective will suggest new modes of language, based on intuition, silence, imagination, and sensibility, allowing only the skin, which is the canvas, to communicate. There is only one rule — no words.
