Title after Mikhail Bakhtin

516 rubber stamps produced with all images from Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary in English, stamp pads, paper, bulletin board, tacks

Exhibition: Ex-Teresa Arte Alternativo, Mexico City

variable dimensions

 

Interactive element: The public creates designs with the stamps, hangs some on the bulletin board, and takes others home

 

As a translator from Spanish to English, my favourite English dictionary is Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary because of its 516 drawings used to define lesser-known objects in a concise and didactic way. For Polyphonic Novel, a rubber stamp for each of the 516 drawings was produced. They were made available to the public to “construct” visual stories by stamping on coloured pieces of paper. This piece was shown on two occasions in Mexico, where Spanish-speaking audiences worked in English - an English lesson but with images. However, many of the images are also unknown to English speakers because they are images of objects that are difficult to define with just words.