Visual Representations of Multilingualism
Over the course of 2018–19, School of Education Lecturer in Literacies Dr Jessica Bradley has worked with colleagues from the British Association for Applied Linguistics and CuratorSpace to launch a competition for artists to develop visual representations of multilingualism. Professor Zhu Hua (Birkbeck, University of London) approached Jessica in August last year as co-convenor of the AILA ReN in Creative Inquiry and Applied Linguistics to work with her on ideas she had for a competition which sought to engage with creative practitioners to explore the concept of multilingualism, in particular from the perspective of recent theories around dynamic multilingualism (for example, translanguaging). Using CuratorSpace, an international platform for artists and curators, the competition call attracted entries from across the world and from a wide range of creative practices. The competition judges included Professor Abigail Harrison Moore from the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds and artist-researcher Dr Louise Atkinson.
This competition provided a creative opportunity to explore new ways of representing multilingualism through visual means and aimed to stimulate debate and raise awareness of innovative ways of thinking about multilingualism. The team were interested in how applied linguists and artists represent new ways of thinking about multilingualism creatively and visually and how these images communicate messages about dynamic multilingualism to the public, opening a dialogue.
The competition was launched in October 2018 and closed last month. The three winning images will be announced and exhibited at the Annual Meeting of the British Association for Applied Linguistics at MMU in August 2019, where Jessica and Zhu Hua will present the competition and processes involved as part of an invited colloquium on multilingualism. Funding was provided by BAAL and by the publisher Multilingual Matters. Further details are available here.
Dr Jessica Bradley teaches teaches across the undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the School of Education, including the BA Education, Culture and Childhood, MA Education and EdD programmes. If you would like to contact her, please email jessica.bradley@sheffield.ac.uk
