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Polyglossia

Article released: Tuesday, 07 June, 2005

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'Polyglossia' is a group exhibition by 3rd year Photomedia students, in response to the Tate Modern's 'Cruel & Tender' photographic exhibition held in London in 2003. The theme of this exhibition, "tender cruelty", referred to the photographers' responses to their subject, which wavers between engagement and estrangement, resulting in a realism that avoids any sentimentality. 

The artists in 'Polyglossia' have created an exhibition in response to 'Cruel & Tender', producing mural scale images which reflect on past and present trends in photomedia. The final result is an astute documentation of the effects of globalisation and its ramifications on our culture today, in 2005.

The term 'polyglossia' comes from Russian philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975) who was a leading figure in an intellectual Soviet circle between the war years that was concerned with the social nature of language, literature, and meaning. Polyglossia  is the contestation of languages and hence of ways of thinking: "Only polyglossia fully frees consciousness from the tyranny of its own language and its own myth of language." Thus reflecting the tension between reality and myth, truth and perception.

In the exhibited images the students show a range of representations through their perceptions of the early 21st century - some images 'real', and some that have been manipulated to capture a perceived moment of cruelty or tenderness observed in the lives of these young photographer.

References
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin on Language, Department of English, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario

Biography of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin

Opening 6 June 2005, 5 - 7pm

Exhibition Dates: 7 - 10 June 2005, 10am - 5pm
COFA Exhibition/Performance Spaces
EG01 & EG03 (E Block, ground floor)
corner Oxford Street & Greens Road, Paddington, NSW 2021
Tel: 9385 0797