Winners announced for the ‘Visual Representations of Multilingualism’ Competition
By Jessica Bradley
We are delighted to announce the winners of the Visual Representations of Multilingualism competition. The announcement by the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) is below. The competition was organised by Professor Zhu Hua (Birkbeck), Dr Jessica Bradley (University of Sheffield and AILA Network for Creative Inquiry and Applied Linguistics) and Dr Louise Atkinson (Independent Artist-Researcher). We are very grateful to our external judge Professor Abigail Harrison Moore from the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds).
In addition to speaking about the project as part of the invited colloquium at the BAAL Annual Meeting in August 2019, a series of public engagement events are planned to follow on from the competition. This includes for the Festival of Social Science 2019 in Sheffield, with details to follow.
BAAL announcement:
We are delighted to announce the results of the Visual Representations of Multilingualism Competition. This competition is part of the BAAL’s initiative of increasing multilingual representation in BAAL and beyond. It is organised in partnership with CuratorSpace, Multilingual Matters, and the AILA Research Network for Creative Inquiry and Applied Linguistics.
1st prize: Light and Language by Linda Persson with Wongatha women Geraldine Hogarth and Luxie Redmond-Hogarth, with parts of the community of Leonora, Desert of Eastern Goldfields Australia
“A fascinating collaborative project that highlighted lesser heard languages and ways of speaking, as in the case of indigenous communities in Australia. The use of media enabled community partners to fully engage in the process of visualising multilingualism.”
2nd prize: (Inter)weaving repertoires by Gail Prasad
“A very clear articulation of the complexity of multilingualism using weaving and the process of making as a way of evidencing the relationship between repertories framed by her vision and theoretical engagement.”
3rd prize: Languages: Time Dreams Avatars by Elina Karadzhova
“An incredibly thoughtful and provocative community project working with multilingual young people. The visuals were striking.”
For further details of these winning entries including images, stories behind them and artists’ bios as well the original call, please visit https://www.baal.org.uk/what-we-do/funding/competition-for-visual-representations-of-multilingualism-2018-2019/
A digital exhibition of winning and shortlisted entries will be held on 29–31 August, at the BAAL Annual Conference 2019, Manchester Metropolitan University. There will be an opportunity to meet the organisers and artists. Many thanks to the colleagues who have shown interest in the competition and helped in many other ways. We hope you enjoy the images as much as we do.
