Ensuring Culture Is Not Lost In Translation

Ensuring Culture Is Not Lost In Translation By Emma Shen

HAVE YOU EVER QUESTIONED IF THE transference of culture from its original origin can be lost in translation at a museum? You step into a well-funded research institution that holds exhibits, telling the story of a culture that is extinct or still exists. I never challenged this thought, because I was raised going to museums through the Cool Culture Program, which focuses on providing low-income NYC families free access to educational opportunities about art and culture. For this reason, I was always excited to enter a museum and explore with awe. Should we be thankful for cultural preservation even though it has been transported from where it is originally from? Can we be cynical and think critically about an institution that is praised for allowing the whole world to be in one place through history and art? To answer these questions, let’s first define the official meaning of what a museum is supposed to be.

According to Hyperallergic, an online publication dedicated to rethinking art and culture, a new definition of “museum” was proposed in September of 2019 by the International Council of Museums, also known as ICOM. A more political definition was revised to include “human dignity and social justice,” as opposed to the previous 50 years deifnition of a “non-profit institution” that “acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.” This new definition becomes controversial as it does not justifiably explain the wide diversity of museums specializing in art, history, culture, or science.

The Binghamton University Art Museum is no exception. Although it may not be as elaborate and fancy as the Met, it does a decent job of using the resources it has from funds, donations, faculty, and student research. Furthermore, since the art pieces have scripture written in their original languages such as Chinese, Korean, or Japanese, accurate translations from experts are necessary. In addition, accrediting the work properly to the original creator makes the exhibit ethical and legitimate. But what

about authenticity in the interpretation of the artist’s work, which can get lost in translation literally and figuratively?

One student organization that took initiative was the Black Student Union in creating the Black Museum/ Poetry Jam as a political statement out of art for Black History Month. The art pieces came directly from young contemporary black artists who displayed their photography, paintings, and other forms of artistic expression, such as modeling, rapping, dancing and singing. This medium shows that the culture is still alive and thriving with lots of potential. When you see the art directly from the artist, there is an instant connection and authenticity portrayed; you feel the love and closeness that comes from a community and its people.

We don’t want to objectify a community by excluding their narrative from a piece of art obtained from their culture. When chosen as a subject to be displayed in an art museum, the history behind the piece must be told in such a way that respects and honors the community. This is accomplished by ascribing cultural significance to a piece and paying tribute to the community. Pieces, thus, should not be purchased out of materialism for the type of style an art piece brings to a room visually as opposed to the historical and cultural meaning behind the piece. Pieces should certainly not be monetized and auctioned because that is when the original purpose of the artistic creation is mistranslated. A disconnect is formed in how the artwork should be appreciated for its authenticity rather than man-made monetary value.

One way the University Art Museum tried to honor a culture was by setting up a grand opening, one day before Lunar New Year, for the Winter Exhibit Snowflakes Between the Gauze: Rubbings from the Han Dynasty. The exhibit is filled with orange and black ink rubbings on paper of ancient Chinese mythology from carved stones found from the Han Dynasty (207 BCE-220 CE) tombs in Nanyang City, Henan province, China. As pieces of memorandum by taking ancient stone carvings and replicating on modern rubbings, shows an unique Vol. XXXVIII, Issue 1 15

technique to preserve culture. These were obtained through connections the Confucius Institute of Chinese Opera at BU had with Hangzhou Normal University in China. By explaining how these artworks were acquired you can see that it is a lengthy process of first retrieving the stones from the Han Dynasty to the artist Bu Youchang and annotator Xia Yipeng at the university from China which is then transferred to Binghamton University. Furthermore, the art pieces are translated from Chinese to English so via multiple transactions it is hard to ensure that 100% of the piece will be correctly interpreted. Thus, intricate research and expertise is needed to properly pay tribute to the original artist.

When you enter the art gallery, you are transported into the ancient Han dynasty as serene music is played, featuring traditional Chinese folk instruments such as the Guzheng (古箏) and Guqin (古琴). Both the first floor and the second level of the museum have new pieces, which include Chinese vases, a Korean panel, and Japanese paintings. The second floor’s exhibit is called The Surface and The Line: Alumni Gifts of Asian Art, which was curated by faculty and a graduate student at Binghamton. Just by sitting through a history class, I understand that history is hard to represent through one display. The portrayal and depiction of the people, culture, and time can be trying, as not every one is the same. There are minorities and majorities in a community, so some parts of the community would not be properly represented. Moreover, history is based off of documentation, so if one part is undocumented, experts would have to deduce and make educated connections upon change and continuities. Thus, it can be hard to curate an exhibition and represent pieces of artwork with justice. In art and preservation of history, there is no one right way to display a gallery. Criticism will inevitably come to better execute an exhibit which is due to visual satisfaction and doing enough to present the culture appropriately. It is not only difficult because how someone represents a culture or identity is personal and rich with deep rooted traditions and customs, but also due to the importance of research, consent of the people from the culture, and justifiable obtainment of the artwork.

In an email, I was able to interview two undergraduate international Chinese seniors, Yiqing Wang and Xinyi Fang, who helped create the exhibit as interns for the University Art Museum under the University’s curator Claire Kovacs and director of Institute for Asia and Asian Diaspora and of the Asians and Asian American Studies department Professor John Chaffee. These interviews have been edited for clarity. The exhibit was held from Jan. 24th to March 4th. Interviews were conducted around Feb. 14.

Emma Shen: How long were you involved with researching the exhibit?

Yiqing Wang: We began to learn about the exhibition

since the winter break, and began to plan the tour two weeks ago (in late January).

ES: Do you feel like this exhibit accurately represents Chinese culture?

YW: Yes, it has a lot of Chinese history and classical legend behind it.

Xinyi Fang: I think so. Because all the works are made from Han tombs, they are pretty authentic.

ES: What is your favorite piece from the exhibit? YW: Personally, my favorite one is Nüwa, [because] the rubbing overall is beautiful and mysterious. Nüwa is the Chinese mythological mother, and she has a human head and a dragon-like body in the rubbing. This can be understood as totem worship, which represents a divine power.

XF: I like the centerpieces about Nüwa and Fu Xi because I like how they are represented with snake/dragon tails. The long tails mark their identities as deities, and represent a longstanding, mythical origin of Chinese people- “descendants of Chinese dragon.” They look mysterious, sacred, and solemn. Great choice for centerpieces.

ES: What inspired the name for the exhibition? How did this exhibition start?

YW: The name of the exhibition is the name of a type of rubbing. The specific styles of wet rubbings range from wujin ta (black-gold) to chanyi ta (cicada wing), sometimes known as xuehua jiasha (snowflakes between gauze). (cr: John Chaffee).

ES: Why do you think Binghamton University needs an Asian art exhibit?

YW: I think an Asian exhibition provides a good opportunity for Asian students themselves to feel a sense of belonging to their culture. It also helps the Asian American students to find relevance in themselves and explore another culture. In addition, it promotes cultural exchanges through artistic means, which I think is valuable to everyone with different cultural backgrounds. XF: I think it’s important because it promotes the multicultural environment in our campus. I also like how the Art Museum has been trying to be more and

more inclusive, as I know the fall exhibition last semester featured African American art.

ES: If you had the chance to create your dream exhibit, what would it be? Doesn’t have to be Chinese inspired- it can be anything that is meaningful to you!

YW: I think this is a very interesting question, and I haven’t thought about the answer. I think that preparing a tour for an exhibition is an intriguing learning process, and the idea to share interesting information I have discovered with others makes me more than excited. In this sense, the theme of the exhibition seems not that important to me.

XF: I guess maybe an exhibition about environmental protection? I actually went to one in Beijing during the summer break and I think it’s inspiring. I care about our environment and I think a lot of people are just not conscious about this issue. Artworks can really visualize this issue and create some impact. the sense of approaches that the Asian artists made to the surfaces, lines, and colors which are the fundamental elements in all kinds of artwork.

ES: How long did it take for you to be satisfied with the end result of the exhibition?

JP: After we completed our introduction panels and labels, we were quite sure that our exhibition would be successful. It was around mid-December when we realized that our jobs were almost done. After that, the actual installation did not take that long, because we already organized the layout of the exhibition in our mind. The actual realization was relatively a simple process.

ES: What inspired you to create this exhibition? JP: Actually I didn’t get any inspiration from the outside. I was given the donated works, and I was just diving into the curation.

Through another set of emails, I was also able to interview Jason Joonsoo Park, a PhD candidate for Art History and co-curator of the exhibit Surface and the Line with Professor Nancy Um. Drawing form their expertise in Art History research behind each piece was collected:

Emma Shen: When did you first start developing the exhibit The Surface and the Line?

Jason Joonsoo Park: I started working on this exhibition last August with professor Nancy Um, the co-curator of this exhibition. Since then, we did research, organizing, selecting, and installing the artworks.

ES: Do you feel like the art pieces provided are an accurate representation of art history throughout East Asia?

JP: Yes. With this exhibition, we tried to provide a different approach of East Asian artists than those of Western artists. It is relatively rare to have this kind of experience in Binghamton. Thanks to our two great alumni collectors, we were able to give the visitors the sense of the ways in which Asian artists, ranging from the archaic ceramic works to the contemporary calligraphies, achieved their particular visualities in East Asia. We didn’t want to present the simple chronological listing, nor categorical arrangement. Rather, we wanted to provide ES: If you had the opportunity to create an art exhibition of your dreams, what would it be?

JP: My focus of interest is environmental art in the 1960s-1980s in the United States, which is totally different from the exhibition I just curated. If I could have a chance, I would create an exhibition delivering the message like this, “Earth is at risk. Art must do something for our planet Earth.”

ES: What year are you in graduate school? Are you an international student? Did you do this for an internship? JP: I’m a Ph.D. Candidate in Art History and this is my 5th year in this graduate program. And I came from South Korea, so yes, I’m an international student… I participated in it as a curator, which is a great and very rare opportunity for a graduate student. The exhibition on the first floor and the one at the mezzanine are totally separate exhibitions… Our exhibition is curated by a professor Nancy Um and I in the Art History Department.

After interviewing all the students involved in creating the two exhibitions I gained a better understanding of the research put behind each artwork. The historical significance and and cultural understanding of the specific time periods is essential to deciphering the purpose and meaning of the artwork. Additionally, by experiencing the tours led by each student humanized the curatorial process in museums. All the students involved had a cultural connection and understood the history behind the art. So I trust that the right people are chosen to create exhibits in one way or another. Through people who have a cultural and historical understanding of art pieces, I believe that little as possible would be lost in translation and transference of the artwork from its original origin. Sources: https://bsu1968.wixsite.com/mysite-1 https://www.binghamton.edu/art-museum/read-more.html https://hyperallergic.com/513858/icom-museum-definition/

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