Lost in Translation is a multi-layered typographical project which explores the nature of linguistics and the change that occurs from switching between different languages. Like my other Winter project, this one is also based on Joseph Brodsky’s Eclogue IV: Winter poem. Lost in Translation shows the layers of translation between English and Russian, and was made in InDesign and printed on vellum paper as posters and booklets.
This poem — being one of my favorites — led me down a rabbit hole that turned somewhat into a passion project. Brodsky, having fled Russia after being charged with “social parasitism,” anti-Soviet rhetoric, and being censored by the Soviet government, made a life as a writer and professor in the United States in the 70s. Eclogue IV is a poem hard to come by in full, especially in the Russian language. I decided to take my favorite passage and create a piece that would allow someone to literally see the layers of languages being translated, mistranslated, and misunderstood as it gets choppier, messier, and more layered. I thought about what it meant for someone to write about home, especially while reminiscing on a time where nuclear war was closer to a reality than a possibility, the Space Race being at its height, and the Cold War continuing its unbating march. How different were those times in comparison to now, and how different are Brodsky’s feelings and emotions conveyed in English in comparison to his mother tongue? There’s an inherent miscommunication that can come with switching between languages and back-and-forth translations. Sometimes one language has a word or phrase that targets an exact thing or feeling that another can’t quite compass. In a somewhat sad, yet beautiful way, there still lies some universal intersection between our worlds-apart languages, cultures, and perspectives that sometimes lets us understand each other just for a split moment.