Film: Practising Bilingualism in Diaspora

The Spoken Worlds film is a collection of interviews and reflections on the multiple challenges of being an immigrant or a diaspora professional in the UK We invited the following art practitioners from various diasporas in the UK: visual artist Małgorzata Dawidek, poet and curator Simona Nastac and research curator and artist Denise Kwan, alongside ECG member and project participant Basil Olton. The film takes a deep dive into their art practices and sheds light on their experiences of being bilingual and how this affects their creative practice. The starting point for these interviews was a set of questions we, as a curatorial group, came up with about the language(s) used in the diaspora.

Watch the film on BAN’s YouTube channel

The film and manifesto expose one of the key reasons for the underrepresentation of diaspora artists: the lack of a clear framework when approaching their art. Also, language and historical context barriers could be overcome with a revised approach and by viewing diasporas in the UK within the broader, international context. Some of the reasons for the problems are the historical, national and socio-economic privilege of the English language, lack of acknowledgement and understanding of diasporic art practices, and marginalisation of artists, curators, scholars and creative practitioners from diasporic communities.