The Translator’s Silence
Shown at: ‘Lines of Control: the Partition as Productive Space’, Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca (2012)

Three lenticular panels
22 inches x 36.6 inches each

Fragments of texts by three South Asian poets, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Rabindranath Tagore, and Agha Shahid Ali, are presented in Urdu, Bengali and English, in lenticular 3D prints. Faiz calls on Pakistanis to be reconciled with the creation of Bangladesh, Tagore writes about accepting the stranger, and Agha Shahid Ali reflects on how the experience of exile can become ’beloved‘ with time. Reading across the three panels evokes the moment of silence before turning to others – often strangers – to help mediate, similar to the cultural shift experienced when moving between partitions or borders.