Björn Larsson

Translationworks is a cooperative project together with hand colourists from Egypt and is active since 2001. The foundation for the project is a possibility or a suggestion to view hand colouring of black and white photographs as an act of translation. Within this project there are different threads in different series of images. Basically I produce black and white photographs-landscapes, buildings, people, etc. I then ask a number of professional hand colourists to interpret the missing color in the images. When contacting and presenting my project for them I have underlined both the character of my project and my wish not to instruct them, what so ever.

With an open reading hand colouring could be understood as a process of translation. In literature the translator is indeed someone influential for the understanding of the text. The original purpose for my project is to see how someone from another culture and with other references than mine, would translate the images from my triviality with the help of colour.

Translators:
Maha Keml – Cairo
Artin Seraphy – Cairo
Ehab Abdellatif – Cairo
Hossni Elwy - Alexandria