“My particular problem was how to pretend that I was not burdened with a dual loyalty, to ignore that I was negotiating the demands of two cultures, both of which I felt in my bones, that I was responding to the sounds of two languages simultaneously. Even though the final product does not show it, I was constantly aware of my dual loyalties. But I decided: Wasn’t this absence of a pure agenda an advantage? I had an inwardness with two languages: my loyalty to Urdu made me want to bring across its exquisite power to sway millions of people with its poetry, and my loyalty to English made me (as a poet in the language) want to create poetry in English. It is generally believed that something is always lost in translation; I cling to the notion—and use, in evidence, the success of Fitzgerald-Khayyam—that something can also be gained”. 

From Agha Shahid Ali’s introduction to Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s immortal text The Rebel’s Silhouette

‘Lost in Translation’ seeks to explore the inherent complexities of language – how its limitation lies in its expression. 

While language facilitates the communicative expression of thought, there remains ambiguity between the space of intention and interpretation. This is how narratives change over time, and the ‘original’ is lost as words, punctuation, emphasis, and intonations pass from individual to individual. There is a gap between what is spoken and what is understood, and this gap may be filled with distortion, misinformation, and misunderstanding. Alternatively, it could be filled with nuance.

Language – whether verbal, non-verbal, or written – facilitates expression, but it also carries an inherent aspect of disappointing the speaker’s/writer’s intention. Yet our deepest communication, both interpersonal and intrapersonal, is beyond the spoken word. 

The double-edged sword that lies within language is its ability to unite as well as strain relationships. The beauty of linguistic diversity is that it gives space to a sense of ambiguity that is perhaps inherent in language. Ambiguity is a frequent and important, though not the sole stimulus, for visual expression. Gaps are intentional – where the viewer is invited with their interpretation. 

This exhibition explores the crevices of communication, understanding, and misunderstanding, touching the spheres of the political, the philosophical, the religious as well as the social, where the sequential modification of information has huge ramifications. You are invited to explore the delicate interplay between intention and interpretation, a space of gain and loss, through the lens of language.