IMELDA ALMQVIST ART: JOURNEYS TO INNER WORLDS, OTHER WORLDS AND AROUND THE WORLD IN PAINTINGS
The art of language, world languages, the languages of our world in paintings,scripts and writing, living languages, lost languages, dead languages, art & language workshops, razblyuto, the heart radical, The New Cross Gate Language Festival 2007, The Gate Post, Berber languages, the Tifinagh script, minority languages, the language of disability, Mandarin Chinese, art workshops for children, language workshops for children, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), L'esprit d'escalier (French), Familia Politica (Spanish), Humboldt's Parrot, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Adult Learners Week 2007,There Is Beauty on the Streets Film, extinct languages, Rongorongo
THE ART OF LANGUAGE
Please Note: This page is all about Language Festivals and bringing the Language paintings to schools, libraries, universities and other institutes of learning. Please use this link to see the paintings of the LANGUAGE & MARK MAKING SERIES.
The ART OF LANGUAGE booklets
The New Cross Gate Language Festival 2007, Family Learning NDC
WHAT IS ON OFFER?
- A series of paintings exploring the languages of our world: 'From the Japanese character for love to the Finnish word for tenacity!'
On offer is a series of 60 paintings about Language. These paintings can be mounted as an exhibition in any venue. They can be shown as a full set or a selection can be made to reflect a particular theme or particular part of the world (say Europe, or Asia).
- A talk about Language in all its aspects: scripts and writing, living languages, lost languages and what makes languages so quirky and unique. To read the full text of this talk and see the paintings of the Language Series, please visit the
- The option of booking an Art & Language workshop for schools or colleges. The focus of the workshop can be tailored to the age group and background of the students
HOW TO BOOK?
E-mail me on info@imelda-almqvist-art.com or call me on 0207 635 7125
RAZBLYUTO (Russian)
This Russian noun is derived from the verb 'razlyubith', ceasing to love. It's the feeling you have for someone you used to love but don't love any longer...
(I am not aware of any other language that has a word for this)
The New Cross Gate Language Festival 2007
In March 2007 Family Learning NDC organised the first New Cross Gate Language Festival. Hopefully it will be the start of a tradition of Language Festivals!
Through the Festival I got talking to local people about language and this has given me a lot of ideas for future paintings. Someone told me about the 'Secret Language of Chinese Women' and I found 'Nushu'. Someone else told me about a Mandarin class she was organising and invited me to join! A Berber lady told me that a script does exist for the Berber language (to correct one misconception in The Art of Language booklet) and I found the Tifinagh script.
TIFINAGH
And this is what the Berber alphabet looks like!
In the future I would welcome a Festival that focussed on the language of minority groups and the language of disability. I would love to talk to deaf and blind people about the role language plays in their lives. My three year old son has been learning some sign language at his nursery and I would like to learn more!
The posters for the New Cross Gate Language Festival 2007 appeared in the film 'There is Beauty on the Streets', made by Family Learning NDC. In this film many residents from our marvellously multi-cultural New Cross Gate appear speaking in their native tongue.
Three paintings from the Language and Mark Making Series were printed up as postcards for Mother's Day: The Japanese 'Love Kanji', 'Sisu' and 'Yi: A Poetic Description of a Pregnancy', see below:
CARDS FOR MOTHER'S DAY 2007
featuring paintings from The Art Of Language Series
Commissioned by New Cross Gate NDC
SOME POSTERS FOR THE NEW CROSS GATE LANGUAGE FESTIVAL
SOAS
After the posters for the Language Festival went up I received an invitation from the SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, part of London University) to take my paintings there as part of a Language Progression Event. This is a project organised by the Aimhigher Trust that encourages bilingual young people to value their mothertongue and consider a career in modern languages.
I took all the paintings of the Language Series there and had some interesting discussions with young people. I asked them to come up with ideas for future paintings and some suggestions were made for Turkish and Bengali paintings (not yet completed!).
LONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
There was another Language Progression Event at the London Metropolitan University in Islington in June 2007. This event focussed on students who have French and Spanish as their mothertongue. I did some paintings about modern European languages for the occasion:
L'ESPRIT D'ESCALIER
(French for 'The Mindset of the Stairs')
This French expression is about something we have all experienced more than once: as you leave a party or someone's flat, as you walk down the stairs, the perfect reply suddenly comes to you. Too late you realise what you should have said...
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FAMILIA POLITICA
It is tempting to 'mistranslate' this phrase as 'Family Politics', but actually it means the In Laws in Spanish!
The paintings of the Language & Mark Making series on display in The Graduate Cemtre at the London Metropolitan University. This building was designed by the same architect as the Jewish Museum in Berlin and Ground Zero in New York. It has a lot of slanting walls -I felt a little seasick all day!
Local Schools
Humboldt's Parrot
Whenever I visit a primary school, I always bring in this painting. All children love the story of the German explorer in the jungle in South America who came across a parrot speaking an extinct language...
Family Learning NDC is planning to organise Art & Language workshops and projects in five primary schools in SE14.
Egyptian Hieroglyphs at Myatt Garden
Recently I did an Art & Language session at Myatt Garden Primary School in Brockley. The children in Reception Class have been working hard to master their phonics. I took in some paintings that showed different scripts and explained the concept of different ways of writing different languages. I gave them some examples of how Chinese characters developed and then got them to write their names in Egyptian hieroglyphs. The children did very well and found it very exciting to see their own name looking so different and exotic. They particularly loved the animal glyphs!
Elliott (5) writes his name in Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Quinn (7) writes his name in Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs
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Painting of Egyptian Hieroglyphs I showed the class before they wrote their own hieroglyphs...
Adult Learner's Week & The Peckham Library
I was invited to talk about Art & Language at the Peckham Library as part of Adult Learners Week, May 2007. The people who came to the talk came up with some good suggestions for future research, such as Cockney Rhyming Slang, the split at the heart of the French language, languages in Ghana and Ivory Coast that don't have a script. Plenty to get on with!
Papers & Magazines
An article appeared on the center spread of the Gate Post.
I was interviewed for an article on language in Southwark Life magazine as part of Adult Learners Week
What next?
I am planning to keep on painting! Hardly a day goes by without another idea for a language painting coming to my attention. It is my attention to contact some venues with an interest in foreign languages and cultures to discuss the possibility of exhibiting the work.
I have just started lessons in Mandarin Chinese and I can feel a lot of paintings about Chinese characters coming on... (see THE LANGUAGE & MARK MAKING PAGE as well as THE HEART RADICAL SERIES below).
Here are some paintings that have barely had a chance to dry!
"THE HEART RADICAL" series
TO FORGET, FORGETTING
This Chinese character consists of the character for 'to die' (top bit) combined with the 'heart radical'. I.e. "that what dies in the heart" = to forget
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SADNESS, GRIEF
This character combines the heart radical (at the bottom again, telling us this character is about feelings or the heart) and the character for 'splitting'. Literally this character consists of wings flying in two different directions, i.e. splitting. Therefore: "a feeling of splitting in the heart", a "heart splitting feeling' = sadness, grief
TO ENDURE
This character consists for the character for knife or blade at the top and once again the heart radical at the bottom. 'A blade in the heart' means 'to endure'/
WORRY, ANXIETY
The Chinese character for 'worry' or 'anxiety' literally means
'that what hangs on the heart'...
THOUGHTS
The Chinese character for thoughts consists of the character for the heart or feelings and the character for brain: i.e.thoughts are 'feelings on the brain'!
MELANCHOLY
The Chinese character for 'melancholy, sadness, sorrow' consists of the heart radical and the character for 'autumn' (literally: time of the crop fires). In other words: melancholy is 'autumn in the heart'!
I will finish this page (for now) with a painting called 'Rongorongo'. Rongorongo is a script that was in use on Rapanui (more commonly referred to as Easter Island in Europe). The word rongorongo itself means 'chants or recitations', but no one has managed to decipher the script so far (though many have tried and come up with very exotic interpretations!)
Unless Rongorongo turns out to be related to a language spoken in Oceania (there was trade between the islands, the script could have been brought over by canoe) we will never decipher this script and it will remain a mystery forever...
RONGORONGO
Imelda Almqvist
(Last updated: August 2010)
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The art of language, world languages, the languages of our world in paintings,scripts and writing, living languages, lost languages, dead languages, art & language workshops, razblyuto, the heart radical, The New Cross Gate Language Festival 2007, The Gate Post, Berber languages, the Tifinagh script, minority languages, the language of disability, Mandarin Chinese, art workshops for children, language workshops for children, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), L'esprit d'escalier (French), Familia Politica (Spanish), Humboldt's Parrot, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Adult Learners Week 2007,There Is Beauty on the Streets Film, extinct languages, Rongorongo
IMELDA ALMQVIST ART: JOURNEYS TO INNER WORLDS, OTHER WORLDS AND AROUND THE WORLD IN PAINTINGS