Free Translation is a multi-disciplinary project showcasing international works by currently and formerly incarcerated people as well as anyone affected by imprisonment. What you are experiencing is the online version of the Free Translation exhibition. In this project we use translation techniques as a means of creatively interpreting works of art and word. This means that we interpret the meaning of the works and create new works of art based on the translations. This can be a translation into another language or another medium. For example, a poem can be manifested into a photograph and a drawing can be written as a letter. In this way, we make new works of art and literature, and get closer to understanding ourselves and each other as we open dialogue.
The Online Gallery
On the online gallery under each picture there is the possibility for you to interpret or comment on that piece. It can be in text, visual, or video format.
Your translations and interpretations inspire more thoughts, feelings, and perspectives to be shared and to be sparked.
How to translate:
+ Select an artwork from the online gallery that speaks to you.
+ Look at it carefully and read it. What is this artwork trying to communicate to you?
+ Using creative means available to you such as pen, paper, recycled materials or your mobile phone camera/word processor create a response to the work. What feelings and thoughts does it inspire in you? How does that feeling translate into a color or a shape, for example?
+ In addition or as an alternative, feel free to translate the work into another language.
Email your translation to info(at)prisonspace.org. Include the title of the piece, date, materials, and author, if you would like these to be posted along with your artwork. You can directly upload your own response/translation to the artwork at the bottom of the artwork where it says ‘Add your interpretation’.
Visitors of the website, art exhibitions and workshops we hold will see your creative response. We always will try to make sure the responses are seen by their authors.
Open Call for Source Texts
We invite folks affected by incarceration to submit a work in any means of creative expression, be it a drawing, a photograph or a poem or any other technique that speaks to you. The open call is ongoing and open to all ages. The works submitted will appear online and in any future exhibitions in Finland and abroad.
This exhibition makes use of the translation process as we interact and create new artworks in response to the original artwork. Your work on view encourages the audience to prompt dialogue, inspire thoughts, and creatively activate the space. Your voice is heard and recognized.
You are welcome to submit a piece of work to be included in the Free Translation exhibition. Include the title of the piece, date, materials, and author, if you would like these to be posted along with your artwork
Your artistic contribution is very much appreciated. Works can be emailed to info(at)prisonspace.org or mailed to:
Free Translation
Pixelache
Kaasutehtaankatu 1
00580 Helsinki
Finland
Please note that the artist is responsible for posting the artworks to be included in the exhibition. By sending us your artworks you give consent to putting them on Prison Space and Translation is Dialogue websites, social media outlets, and including them in the exhibitions in public spaces and online. If for any reason, you wish to be anonymous, please state that clearly. We reserve a right to exhibit a selected number of works.
To keep up to date on Free Translation happenings, please check www.prisonspace.org, www.translationisdialogue.org and www.facebook.com/prisonspace
We hope to see you there!
Anastasia Artemeva & Arlene Tucker
Free Translation is a continuously growing interactive space that exhibits art by people affected by incarceration. Please feel free to contact us at info(at)prisonspace.org.
Free Translation Sessions is a collaboration of two projects: Prison Outside and Translation is Dialogue (TID). We are based in Helsinki, Finland. Prison Outside focuses on the role of the arts in subjects of imprisonment, justice, and in the relationships between people in prisons and people outside. TID is an ongoing art curation that generates a new project every time it is presented. TID uses translation techniques to not only produce art, but also understand what is being communicated.
To keep up to date and learn more about our projects, please visit www.prisonspace.org, www.translationisdialogue.org and www.facebook.com/prisonspace.
Thank you and we look forward to seeing your artwork!
Gratefully,
Anastasia Artemeva & Arlene Tucker
“Flying even though wings are down”. Translation made in Joutsa, Finland, June 2022.
“See the abundance. Let go of fear” a translation made in Joutsa, Finland, june 2022
Thinking of you and await peace
Sibelius: “Freedom”, 10.5.22
Salvador SANI:” Sideshow bob X Salvador”, 10.5.22.
A Dublin-based poet Gabriel Rosenstock sends Srinagar-based artist Masood Hussain a poem in Irish and English, titled ‘Flowers for Varavara Rao’ – a tribute to the ailing 81-year-old poet-activist who has been imprisoned since 2018, arrested in the Elgar Parishad case.
Hussain chose to make a short poetry film in response to the poem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW2uD6fFalI
Transcription:
Scale is inconsistent. Somehow I ended up drawing a pond in the middle of the room, probably that happened when Arlene dictated “sea green”
In the middle of the pond you have the chairs that will not diffuse any toxic fumes in case of fire and then a fire avatar burning down from a large and disproportionate computer. Next to the computer there is a Janus phased small person with very prominent collar bones, listening to the loud sounds coming from the long tables. How is that relaxing to the loudspeaker that is found perpendicularly under another large computer on the far left of the picture?
I5 feet further there is another human figure that I cannot recall who it was meant to represent. A bossy looking person stands behind the four TVs.
Interpretation by Danai
part 2
Part 1
*Drawing Interpretation*
As I look longer at it, it appears to me that the person has an accident. The tables laid out appear to be a zebra-crossing and the hand reaches out to the cassette player (I don’t know why I drew that and the hair, maybe both add some sort of mysticism to me: the flow of long hair strands and the earphone wires). Since all of it appeared to be thoughts at the library I put that aura in there : radiating and thinking. Cell bars appear to be flyover pillars and the audience in front of the screen seems like overweight ants.
Transcription:
The lines + patterns + flows are everywhere- there is such a functionality to the way it all exists here. The objects hold space and speak- setting such a dense tone for the whole room. Sounds cut through and rupture, I can’t find a place to rest. Politics are intertwined with everything and make it hard for my body to breathe with ease. Things are happening all the time- it’s like the stage for a play.
Bouncing, colliding, touching, wandering- hitting off the edges and continuing.
I go to take a piece of tin foil from the last bar of dark chocolate in the fridge. Thomas talked about chocolate in prison and using tin foil to make art. Resource of hope. Small pleasure. Granted to whom? I drew the woman figure on the left of a cardboard with pastels starting from the head and hair, pink body, then added the foil like a flame on the right. Colours added in an arch shape, finally the arms reaching out to the flame. There is blue inside the body, the other colours are warm. Shopping bags won’t help- my woman has her arms out. Where is soul burning? Is voice coming from without, from gesture, connection? Imperfectly alive.
“Elämää!”
Translation of “Where the Wild Things Are”
Indirect translation of Tomás, Sugar Substitute
There are the eyes of the woman at the top left of a white page. Underneath I drew the shape of the shoulders, contracted and muscular, and where the clavicles converge I drew her mouth. The mouth is linked with the right arm by the word Sugar as if hanging between shoulder and mouth. The line of the left arm also shows the shape of the movement of the hand, leaning on the bottom with the word Cane. On top of the eyes the lines of the hair. Colours are red and blue.
Косвенный перевод
В левом верхнем углу белой страницы – глаза женщины. Внизу я нарисовала форму плеч, сжатых и мускулистых, и там, где сходятся ключицы, я нарисовал ее рот. Рот связан с правой рукой словом «Сахар», словно висит между плечом и ртом. Линия левой руки также показывает форму движения руки, опираясь на дно со словом Cane. На верхушках глаз линии волос. Цвета – красный и синий.
“Collar bones”
.
Looking at..
Anastasia: The description of my translation of “Desire”.
Female curves. Body lines, hair lines. Two eyes closed. Another one eye open – an eye of a surveillance camera. Big shiny, glimmering, glimpsing, watching with desire, gazing.
A list of words written in thick black marker, words in Russian and in English. Some words legible, some unreadable. I can make out: “more…beauty…eye…hands..”
The page torn at the bottom, split.
The colours are blue and pink and black, but cold, unlike the source painting.
Warmth comes from within
in a world that is so cold.
Dark blues, reds, and purples impose themselves around a central figure. She is a muddy yellow, something organic compared to the color around her. Her figure is slightly distorted, abstracted, without detail. Her hands, gentle, graceful, indistinct claws, reach up to her face. She appears to have no eyes, but perhaps they have yet to be added by the artist. Her mouth is red and quite vivid. She can speak.
This is my translation of Tomas’ reply to Anastasia. I really liked how vividly he described his image, so I tried to show how I pictured his words.
“Nainen” (Woman)
“(Tyttö) Punatukkainen tyttö”
I was drawn to this women’s arms. They are so small and so pale, in contrast to the dress, that you can barely see them. I decided to translate the arms a few times on top of each other.
A cross on a grave and a new beginning
Matushka-matreshka
With this drawing and collage I wanted to question censorship of using an image of a woman’s body. – Anastasia
I took more stuff but then made it more simple. From Anastasia’s drawing. June 2020
From stone to air somehow it all started to melt into one another. June 2020.
I was attracted by this poem that I could not read, with already a translation I could read, then I saw the statue of a woman with a child, by the same author Оксана Крутицкая (Oksana Krytickaya). So, my translation of the poem was influenced by the statue. And viceversa. I felt heavy and fluid at the same time while drawing the shape.I copied the words. Words worlds.
TimeCapsule, Electrostal, Russia, 2019
Time Capsule, Electrostal, Russia
Translation by Katja, Moscow – Electrostal, 2019.
A reply created during Free Translation Session in Moscow in October 2019:
Wishing you inner strength. You are wonderful and unique.
Hello Natalia,
Thank you for your honest and true letter. The difficult situation You found yourself in cannot be made easy (right now) but I would like to say to you:
Regardless of your past and your present, your life still belongs to You. I have never met You, but I can say for sure that your heart if beautiful, You are strong. And now, after the year 2020 (you wrote about it) you will resolve your situation, You will not die, you will overcome your hardship.
Thank you that You exist. 2019.
Наталия: я выбрала письмо, пишет Марина из тюрьмы, веселых писем оттуда не бывает, и здесь подчеркнуто “мама с папой умерли”, как ей освобождаться, что ей надеть, ч то она будет есть – нарисовала самое практичное, а потом вспомнила, ч то обязательно нужна красота – дорисовала юбку и туфли на каблуках.
Natalia: I chose a letter, Marina writes from prison, there is not happy letters from there, and in this one it is emphasized “mom and dad have died,” What will she do when she is released, what will she wear, what will she eat? I drew the painted the most practical items, and then remembered that we need some beauty, too – so I added the skirt and high heel shoes.
A reply to Marina’s letter made during a Free Translation workshop in Moscow in October 2019.
“Marina, take care of your self!”
A view from a window
A view from a video screen
An interpretation of Juha’s translation: “Peacock”
Wendy’s interpretation
A translation of Wendy’s work by Oksana Krytickaya: “It’s all about light – light that we can search for and always find, both around and inside of us.”
This is a translation of Jhenna El-Sawaf’s artwork. As I was following the lines, I started to think about the people living in the buildings. As we have been in quarantine for some time, are we ready to leave or caves?
Pen, acrylic paint
KAJO: “Lempeys” 10.5.22, huopa, lanka, nahka…
Tiina: “Odotus” 10.5.22, pastelli
Anna: “Fenix” 10.5.22, pastelli
Anastasia: What is outside. 10.5.2022
Niina – Kipu, 10.5.2022
Timoфei: “Usko ja toivo rakkaudesta” 10.5.22, pencil, oil pastels, pastel.
Greeting card by Lucille (inside), September 2019
Greeting card by Lucille (cover), September 2019
Letter from Iines 2, September 2019
Letter from Iines 1, September 2019
Anastasia’s ongoing stitching
Arlene Tucker, Road to Forgiveness
Translation by Cynde, September 2019
Interactive interpretation by Pablo (open), September 2019.
Interactive interpretation by Pablo (closed), September 2019.
Translation by Kari Vähä-Aho
Marianne: “Kaksi vanhaa puuta ja 8+1 taimea” 10.5.22, pastelliliitu
Eveliina – Elämän sävyt ja kerrokset, 10.5.2022
People begging for help escape
The human suffering an intangled. sometimes our positionalities are preventing us from experiencing the suffering and desperation of other people. Though we are same yet similarly impacted by destiny.
Trees, lost, trapped, choking, tired
Faces – shouting – Munk
Hands on trees’ roots
Shouting face to face
We are all connected
In a prison of gazes
Despair, longing, searching, intertwined, anger, inescapable
People trapped. Suffering.
Twisted lives, struggle to get out, hands tightly holding on to ropes.
.
Writing on a wall
A skeleton is a starting point.
A translation via a shared process, moving through ins and outs, releasing and unpressuring.
Interpretation by Juha Hilpas, 2019
Russian to English translation:
” Me
I got out of prison
* meeting my close ones
* how I look
* studies
* work *family, children
* get married beautifully”
Resources:
1.My own power: being positive, organised, firm, confident.
2. My family and friends.
3.FAITH
4. Girl with a strong personality. – This lady will not get pushed around!
—
1. Mortgage (If you don’t pay, your apartment can be taken away)
2. Loan (but you must pay it back on time)
3. Personal savings
4. Equipment (we have a sewing machine)
5. Time (an opportunity to focus on your business)
6. Sew at home
7. Support from the government
8. Internet
Time changes our world
Автопортрет + дождь
Who am I?
Anastasia Trizna, Interpretation of Juha Hilpas – Chrome Toilet 1, 2018
Arlene Tucker
Words that popped out formed a diary of my past.
2019
Translation made with Mikhail Agafonov’s group on his visit to correctional facility for young female offenders in Russia. Интерпретация, выполненная на мастер-классе Михаила Агафонова в девичьей воспитательной колонии в России.
Don’t give up!
Don’t give up on life no matter how hard it Pushes u!!
Remarkable! Every image is in transition, running, reaching for, the solidity of the strong buildings in the front! Progress has begun but there’s still work to be done!
"Jailbird" from Minna Hint on Vimeo.
Bird. Solitary. Just one.
Bird from two sides
Translation made with Mikhail Agafonov’s group on his visit to correctional facility for young female offenders in Russia. Интерпретация, выполненная на мастер-классе Михаила Агафонова в девичьей воспитательной колонии в России.
Mask
Electrostal, Russia, 2019
From Electrostal City, Russia, 2019 (front)
From Electrostal City, Russia, 2019 (reverse side)
Two friends from Electrostal, Moscow district, created this collage in response to Cirese’s ID card.
An interpretation by Tom (Ireland-Russia)
“From the bottom of my heart. Electrostal city.” 2019
“From the bottom of my heart. Electrostal city.” 2019
Reverse Side
Translation by Maria, 15 y.o. from Electrostal, Russia
Translation made with Mikhail Agafonov’s group on his visit to correctional facility for young female offenders in Russia. Интерпретация, выполненная на мастер-классе Михаила Агафонова в девичьей воспитательной колонии в России.
I let things flow naturally from my mind through my hand onto the paper. This is what I was thinking about, imagining, feeling.
Translating cat
I didn’t think of from which side the viewer is standing on. This is what I saw from my window.
Walking free
Breaking free!
Jyrki Heikkinen
Imagination is a gate and will is a threshold stone.
Mielikuvitus on portti ja tahto on kynnyskivi.
Materials: Common reed, Indian ink
Tarvikkeet: Järviruoko, muste
2019
She is walking free out of the door into the night, the opposite time of day as in the original. She is unchained, walking courageously and proudly out. The bars are behind her and the path into the future goes towards the sky.
The seasons pass by. Time either moves very fast or very slowly when you are in jail. I can only imagine. The weather must feel so different from where you are.
On the other side
I feel like this piece shows the body and soul die slowly and mercilessly and rot in jail while the prisoners only joy is to get see the beautiful world, so nature.
Furthermore, I think it in a way portrays that fact that people who are free take basic things we see everyday like trees and the sky and fresh air very and just sort of disregard them.
