Sarah Bryant
Allison Grant
David Allen
Ben Mitchell
Luvada A Harrison
Sonia Duprez
Alabama, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and the UK
www.bigjumppress.com
Instagram: @bigjumppress
Acts of Translation
2024
Letterpress, Relief, Inkjet, Screenprinting
9 x 5.5 x 2 when closed, variable width when opened.
Artist Statement
Acts of Translation is an interconnected set of collaborations investigating the conversion and communication of information. A photographer, an ecologist, a type designer, a soprano performer, and an elementary school Spanish teacher each describe an act of translation critical to their life and work. Text for this project was gathered, edited, and recombined from recorded interviews conducted between 2021 and 2023.
The book is composed of five acts:
- Make it Material to Know it: the expression of a complex idea with a single photograph
- A Model Has to Be Wrong: the conversion of an ecological system into a predictive mathematical model
- The Essential Form of a Letter: the expression of Burmese script as a font that can be set fluidly with Latin script
- A Vowel Weds Itself to Air: the transformation of a musical score into an emotional connection with an audience
- There is Always a Story: the interpretation of non-verbal cues in a classroom of small children
These voices and experiences, housed together, offer unexpected points of connection across disciplines. This project seeks to highlight our shared experience, even when what we have in common is the difficulty inherent in communicating across divides. Each of the components in this book effectively captures two acts of translation: first, the particular act of conversion and communication performed by individuals at the heart of the book; second, my work as an artist to represent their act through the combination of text, image, material, and structure. Acts of Translation can be expanded to reveal all five acts at once, or collapsed so that the texts from any two can be examined side by side. The book can therefore be read across the collaborations, revealing language that links our experience and highlights overlapping themes.
Collaborators:
Allison Grant is a photographer, writer, and curator. Grant’s artworks have been widely exhibited at venues including the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; DePaul Art Museum in Chicago; Patti & Rusty Rueff Galleries at Purdue University; Edelman Gallery in Chicago among others.
Dr. David Allen received his Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics and PhD in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of Michigan. His work has been published numerous journals, including Journal of Medical Entomology, Biological Conservation, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Global Ecology & Biogeography, Okios, and the Journal of Ecology.
Ben Mitchell is a type designer based in Brighton, UK. He has designed and consulted on fonts for Burmese, Buginese, Chak, Cham, Khmer, Kwekor (Myainggyingu), Lao, New Tai Lue, Tai Phake, Thai, Tham and Vietnamese, and regularly makes research trips to Southeast Asia to study typography, lettering and handwriting.
Dr. Luvada A. Harrison made her Carnegie Hall debut as soloist with the Manhattan Philharmonic and her Lincoln Center debut in Alice Tully Hall with the New York Choral Society as the soprano soloist in Rossini’s Stabat Mater. Dr. Harrison has performed with regional opera companies and symphony orchestras throughout the United States and Europe.
Sonia Duprez has worked professionally in education since 2003. She began her career with the New York City Teaching Fellows, an accelerated accreditation program designed to recruit teachers to high-needs public schools. She earned a M.Ed in Bilingual Education from the City College of New York in Harlem while teaching Spanish and bilingual kindergarten full-time in the South Bronx.