Molly Bleiden: English Plus: (L)earning from the Bilingual
Title:
- English Plus: (L)earning from the Bilingual
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
- ISEA97: Eighth International Symposium on Electronic Art
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More artworks from ISEA97:
Artist Statement:
Components: Includes office furniture and accessories to customize your office to your non-English speaking clientele and remind your bi-lingual employees to stick to English whenever the client walks out the door. Central to the installation is the Transparent Image Design Studio: Culture Encounter Desk with hinged front panel to be flipped up whenever non-English speaking clientele enter the office. The desk is made of stained maple with Sunshine Yellow Formica on the underside of the front panel. Inset into the Formica underside are”cultural accessories” such as bilingual coffee mugs and bilingual newspapers. Other English Plus components include a rotating plant stand (with Spanish Moss on one side, and English Plus on the other), a rotating flag accessory (where at the press of a button, your customer’s native flag appears), a bilingual welcome plaque (which switches from “Welcome” to”Bienvenido” at the push of a button), and a Peters Projection map (which represents the various continents in proportion to actual relative land mass, such that South America and Africa are larger than North America and Europe) inset into a Venetian blind. With the Culture Encounter Desk and the English Plus accessories, switching back and forth between languages is as easy as pressing a button! Also included in the installation is an audio track with narratives of bilingual office workers from the Miami area describing their experiences working in bilingual.
