Translating an Exhibition. Co-producing Local Responses to Transnational Research.

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The aim of this proposal for follow-on funding is to develop the collaborative practices of the Transnationalizing Modern Languages (TML) project, one of the large AHRC grant under the Translating Cultures theme. Since 2014 TML has been investigating the development of modern Italian culture and its interactions with other cultures in contexts of migration. The project has also been developing innovative research and pedagogy practices, based on knowledge exchange and the co-production of research outputs with the subjects of its research - i.e. the people, artists and cultural associations that have shared memories and materials through the project's fieldwork. The exhibition "Beyond Borders: Transnational Italy" is a major output of TML and displays examples of people's experience of Italian culture from across the globe. Photographs, audio and visual recordings, art installations and other materials gathered through the fieldwork are mounted in a series of augmented reality installations produced in close collaboration with the subjects of research and a team of professional Art curators and software developers, Routes Agency. The exhibition represents the most advanced contribution of TML to the innovation of research practices and ideas of academic knowledge. This proposal aims to bring the project exhibition for the first time into a Mediterranean country connected to Italy via historical and contemporary circuits of migration, namely Tunisia. In this multilingual and multicultural context, where Italian is very popular across multiple sectors of the society, this project will provide to teachers and learners of Italian, as well as to the wider Arabophone and Francophone public, the opportunity to consider the local development of Italian heritage in the light of the wider transnational context explored by TML. As partners in activities of the project, the Italian Cultural Institute and La Manouba University will ensure the engagement of students and audiences of their networks. Beyond the metropolitan context of Tunis, the project will address women and community associations through the involvement of COSPE Onlus, the NGO partner of the initiative.The exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute in Tunis will be at the center of a series of activities for targeted audiences, including a workshop hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of La Manouba University. The main outcome of the workshop, convened by Dr. Barbara Spadaro and Routes Agency, will be a series of new installations for the TML exhibit, co-produced with Tunisian students as a response to the TML project to show the multicultural and multilingual context of Tunisia. The participants in the workshop will be exposed to innovative research and curatorial practices, and invited to reflect critically on the processes of memorialization and translation of the different cultures and languages that characterize the Tunisian context. The participants will learn how to translate in multi-sensorial and multi-media installation their own research. In so doing they will provide both feedback and a continuation of TML research on memory, translation and transculturality, while contributing to the development of new forms of knowledge exchange. The project will give to the PI and her non-academic partners (namely Routes Agency) the opportunity to develop further the impact activities of TML in the specific context of Dr Spadaro's research, where she will be also exploring further need and opportunities to apply her research in practical contexts. While training her skills for project management, the project will feed into the process of self-evaluation of the Translating Culture Theme and contribute to its overall legacy.