Temple University
Teresa Jaynes, instructor
Art and Translation is a course in the Visual Studies Program at Tyler School of Art, Temple University. The class is designed to study how language and meaning are constructed and how it is the role of translation to make the unfamiliar comprehensible. The metaphor of translation implicitly moves the artist out of a position she or he has occupied since the Renaissance – that of author/creator – and into an intermediary position between bodies of ideas and audiences. The studio project for this course is to create an artwork based on archival research. The challenge for the student is stay faithful to the contents and the form of their original source while also making it their own through further research into the topic and personal experience.
This course is predicated on the idea that the artist in contemporary society is valued not only for creative ability, but for interpretive skill. The class includes readings and discussions on translation theory, the fundamental components of language, and the role of the archive as it relates to art and cultural production. Students then apply these concepts through research, writing and studio projects based in archival materials held in the Balch Collections at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.