The main theme of the exhibition East Asian Languages through Ears and Eyes is life and living. Students at the Asian Studies Department have written down their thoughts on this subject in Korean, Japanese and Chinese, and then translated them into Slovenian. In doing so they followed a free poetic form and a flow of free associations through which they express their own considerations and feelings. And since the Chinese, Japanese and Korean poetic tradition and modernity are constantly imbued with questions concerning the deepest layers of human existence, ephemerality, joy, longing and death, the exhibition also includes the students’ translations of classical and modern poems into Slovenian. Just how different these three East Asian languages are can be heard through recordings of recitals, and seen in the scripts of the three languages. These scripts in themselves carry their own visually aesthetic experience, since the characters, the phonetic notation and a combination of the two work as pictures through which the viewer enters the East Asian cultural landscape.
The pondering of young people on the meaning of life and what it actually means to them to live is naturally an important document of the spirit of the time and space we are inhabiting. By observing existence they repeatedly question the established norms and values, and offer up for consideration different approaches to making sense of our own existence, seeking personal fulfilment and happiness, and also a consideration of what in fact is the value of a human in today’s world.
Students: Alja Filip, Vida Krevs, Lucija Berčič, Hana Meško, Aljaž Novak, Mina Grčar, Pia Malalan, Severin Lorenčič, Lucija Berčič, Tina Ravnik, Neža Vombergar, Rebeka Legvart, Julija Brezočnik, Qing Miao, Lana Bičak, Melek Çetinkaya, Katarina Hitomi Gerl, Andrea Gracin, Gaia Kristina Gregorič, Akın Tamer Güngör, Makoto Hashizume, Yuzaburo Ito, Roza Jaki, Sabrina Marija Japelj, Nina Kališnik, Klara Kavčnik, Mizuki Kawakami, Pia Kos, Daša Mikuž, Lamija Mršo, Kaja Prelec Maya Pucelj, Saša Rajniš, Ana Razinger, Marta Simeonov, Ana Dejanović, Ana Krstačić, Anastasija Mićunović, Anita Kunšič, Eva Jug, Jovana Đurđević, Lana Valič, Nastja Prijatelj, Nežka Smerkolj, Nika Inkret, Tamara Podolski, Tjaša Kurajić, Zara Hudnik Zaviršek, Primož Prevodnik, Naja Prezelj, Urša Pelicon, Larisa Bric, Hana Kužnar, Lucija Vilčnik, Karina Myronova, Maša Grajžel, Urška Lupša, Lučka Pikec, Ana Golob, Ita Plotajs
Mentors: Asst. Prof. Dr Nagisa Moritoki Škof, Asst. Prof. Dr Téa Sernelj and Asst. Prof. Dr Byoung Yoong Kang
Lecturer for Chinese language: M.A. Li Xiao
Production: Asian Studies Department, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana
MGBS Curator: Vladimir Vidmar
The exhibition will be accompanied by a dynamic programme of events:
- Thursday, 16th March at 7 pm: opening with a poetry recital, accompanied by the koto, a Japanese classical instrument, and Butoh Japanese dance
- Tuesday, 21st March at 5 pm: evening devoted to Japanese avant-garde music, dance and poetry
- Saturday, 25th March at 6 pm: musical and literary evening of Chinese classical and modern poetry
- Thursday, 30th March at 5 pm: Korean poetry recital
- Thursday, 6th April at 5 pm: closing event, joint reading of Slovenian poetry translated into Korean, Japanese and Chinese (featuring translations of the poems of Srečko Kosovel, Tone Pavček and Tomaž Šalamun)
