Translation Stream

Poems by contemporary Emirati poets Nujoom Alghanem, Khalid Albudoor, and Adel Khozam are presented as a slow stream of letters, which are projected across a long stretch of trail. The letters meander down the island trail, inviting the public to follow them. As people walk, their detected presence automatically translates the poems between English and Arabic and vice versa. The stream of language is controlled by fluid dynamic equations, which ensure that the flow pattern is always unique. Poetry is the most challenging form of writing for translation – the reading here becomes an embodied path, with languages seamlessly morphing between one and another through each individual interaction.