A table made again for the first time
For Bureau des Réalités, Juan de la Cosa presents A table made again for the first time, a project structured around three events, each one focusing on a potential take on the idea of translation, both on the written page and the exhibition space. From its canonical definition as a journey from a language to another, to its metaphorical reading as a tie between mediums, all the way to its sociological interpretation as a lens capable of displaying the hidden mechanisms of a culture, translation seems to be in a moment of fervour. As such, and thought the work of the invited artists and writers, A table made again for the first time aims at opening a space for further discussions on and around the topics of what a translation could be and do.
Sunday 9 September 2018, 5pm, Bureau des Réalités
Spoken World Gallery with Marie Lund
Within Bureau des Réalités space, Marie Lund will present the third exhibition of this series. A partial transcript of the event will be taken live by Eleanor Ivory Weber.
Tuesday 11 September 2018, 6 pm, La Loge
Screening of 24 Portraits by Alain Cavalier
In cooperation with Etablissement d'en face, Juan de la Cosa / John of the Thing and Bureau des Réalités screen and discuss a selection of Alain Cavalier’s short documentaries 24 Portraits (1987/1991).
A series of sketches about handwork trades and vernacular traditions, these portraits look at women’s labour focusing on rare and disappearing crafts that recall traditions long lost. Through the documentary medium, Cavalier observes the tools, the hands and the environment of those women asking questions while minutely and delicately observing their work, somehow proposing an odd balance between manual labor, speech and image making.
Wednesday 12 September 2018, 6pm, Bureau des Réalités
Reading by Jesper List Thomsen followed by a reading and a discussion with the writer and translator Kate Briggs
Published in English and Spanish, BASE BASE is the first book-length collection of texts by Danish artist Jesper List Thomsen, as well as the third title in Juan de la Cosa/John of the Thing editorial activity.
An essay that is also a novel and a memoir, Kate Briggs’ This Little Art is a layered book that ultimately celebrates the delights and complexities of reading, writing and living with/through translations. Starting from her experience of translating Roland Barthes’s lecture notes, Kate threads various stories together to produce a portrait of her craft as an intensely relational activity. A recurrent image in the book: Robinson Crusoe’s effort to “make a table for himself for the first time”, which became the conceptual motive behind Juan de la Cosa’s project as well as its title.