Acts of Translation Artist's Book by Sarah Bryant
This piece is a semi-finalist for the 2024 MCBA Prize, and will be included in the 2024 MCBA Prize Exhibition from August 17th - October 12th, 2024. Pieces purchased before the end of the exhibition will ship on October 18th, 2024.
Additionally, this piece is featured in the August 2024 issue of The Fore Edge, a quarterly newsletter from MCBA that highlights new artists’ books and zines for collections, universities, and libraries. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, there is a sign up available here.
“Acts of Translation is an interconnected set of collaborations investigating the conversion and communication of information. A photographer, an ecologist, a type designer, a soprano performer, and an elementary school Spanish teacher each describe an act of translation critical to their life and work. Text for this project was gathered, edited, and recombined from recorded interviews conducted between 2021 and 2023.
The book is composed of five acts:
1. Make it Material to Know it: the expression of a complex idea with a single photograph
2. A Model Has to Be Wrong: the conversion of an ecological system into a predictive mathematical model
3. The Essential Form of a Letter: the expression of Burmese script as a font that can be set fluidly with Latin script
4. A Vowel Weds Itself to Air: the transformation of a musical score into an emotional connection with an audience
5. There is Always a Story: the interpretation of non-verbal cues in a classroom of small children
These voices and experiences, housed together, offer unexpected points of connection across disciplines. This project seeks to highlight our shared experience, even when what we have in common is the difficulty inherent in communicating across divides. Each of the components in this book effectively captures two acts of translation: first, the particular act of conversion and communication performed by individuals at the heart of the book; second, my work as an artist to represent their act through the combination of text, image, material, and structure. Acts of Translation can be expanded to reveal all five acts at once, or collapsed so that the texts from any two can be examined side by side. The book can therefore be read across the collaborations, revealing language that links our experience and highlights overlapping themes.” -Sarah Bryant
9” x 5.5” x 2”
*Consignment item. Not eligible for 10% membership discount. All consignment purchases are final and non-refundable once shipped.
This piece is a semi-finalist for the 2024 MCBA Prize, and will be included in the 2024 MCBA Prize Exhibition from August 17th - October 12th, 2024. Pieces purchased before the end of the exhibition will ship on October 18th, 2024.
Additionally, this piece is featured in the August 2024 issue of The Fore Edge, a quarterly newsletter from MCBA that highlights new artists’ books and zines for collections, universities, and libraries. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, there is a sign up available here.
“Acts of Translation is an interconnected set of collaborations investigating the conversion and communication of information. A photographer, an ecologist, a type designer, a soprano performer, and an elementary school Spanish teacher each describe an act of translation critical to their life and work. Text for this project was gathered, edited, and recombined from recorded interviews conducted between 2021 and 2023.
The book is composed of five acts:
1. Make it Material to Know it: the expression of a complex idea with a single photograph
2. A Model Has to Be Wrong: the conversion of an ecological system into a predictive mathematical model
3. The Essential Form of a Letter: the expression of Burmese script as a font that can be set fluidly with Latin script
4. A Vowel Weds Itself to Air: the transformation of a musical score into an emotional connection with an audience
5. There is Always a Story: the interpretation of non-verbal cues in a classroom of small children
These voices and experiences, housed together, offer unexpected points of connection across disciplines. This project seeks to highlight our shared experience, even when what we have in common is the difficulty inherent in communicating across divides. Each of the components in this book effectively captures two acts of translation: first, the particular act of conversion and communication performed by individuals at the heart of the book; second, my work as an artist to represent their act through the combination of text, image, material, and structure. Acts of Translation can be expanded to reveal all five acts at once, or collapsed so that the texts from any two can be examined side by side. The book can therefore be read across the collaborations, revealing language that links our experience and highlights overlapping themes.” -Sarah Bryant
9” x 5.5” x 2”
*Consignment item. Not eligible for 10% membership discount. All consignment purchases are final and non-refundable once shipped.
This piece is a semi-finalist for the 2024 MCBA Prize, and will be included in the 2024 MCBA Prize Exhibition from August 17th - October 12th, 2024. Pieces purchased before the end of the exhibition will ship on October 18th, 2024.
Additionally, this piece is featured in the August 2024 issue of The Fore Edge, a quarterly newsletter from MCBA that highlights new artists’ books and zines for collections, universities, and libraries. If you are interested in receiving this newsletter, there is a sign up available here.
“Acts of Translation is an interconnected set of collaborations investigating the conversion and communication of information. A photographer, an ecologist, a type designer, a soprano performer, and an elementary school Spanish teacher each describe an act of translation critical to their life and work. Text for this project was gathered, edited, and recombined from recorded interviews conducted between 2021 and 2023.
The book is composed of five acts:
1. Make it Material to Know it: the expression of a complex idea with a single photograph
2. A Model Has to Be Wrong: the conversion of an ecological system into a predictive mathematical model
3. The Essential Form of a Letter: the expression of Burmese script as a font that can be set fluidly with Latin script
4. A Vowel Weds Itself to Air: the transformation of a musical score into an emotional connection with an audience
5. There is Always a Story: the interpretation of non-verbal cues in a classroom of small children
These voices and experiences, housed together, offer unexpected points of connection across disciplines. This project seeks to highlight our shared experience, even when what we have in common is the difficulty inherent in communicating across divides. Each of the components in this book effectively captures two acts of translation: first, the particular act of conversion and communication performed by individuals at the heart of the book; second, my work as an artist to represent their act through the combination of text, image, material, and structure. Acts of Translation can be expanded to reveal all five acts at once, or collapsed so that the texts from any two can be examined side by side. The book can therefore be read across the collaborations, revealing language that links our experience and highlights overlapping themes.” -Sarah Bryant
9” x 5.5” x 2”
*Consignment item. Not eligible for 10% membership discount. All consignment purchases are final and non-refundable once shipped.
Sarah Bryant (she/her) has produced artist books and prints under the name Big Jump Press since 2005. Her work can be found in dozens of libraries and private collections in the United States and abroad, including The Library of Congress, The New York Public Library, The Darling Bio-medical Library at UCLA, and The Yale Arts Library. Bryant has won numerous awards, including the prestigious MCBA Prize, an international award given every two years to a single artist book. Bryant frequently collaborates with other artists as well as people working in other fields. She is currently an assistant professor for the MFA Book Arts Program at The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
BigJumpPress.com | Instagram: @BigJumpPress
Collaborators:
Allison Grant is a photographer, writer, and curator. Grant’s artworks have been widely exhibited at venues including the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; DePaul Art Museum in Chicago; Patti & Rusty Rueff Galleries at Purdue University; Edelman Gallery in Chicago among others.
Dr. David Allen received his Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics and PhD in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of Michigan. His work has been published numerous journals, including Journal of Medical Entomology, Biological Conservation, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Global Ecology & Biogeography, Okios, and the Journal of Ecology.
Ben Mitchell is a type designer based in Brighton, UK. He has designed and consulted on fonts for Burmese, Buginese, Chak, Cham, Khmer, Kwekor (Myainggyingu), Lao, New Tai Lue, Tai Phake, Thai, Tham and Vietnamese, and regularly makes research trips to Southeast Asia to study typography, lettering and handwriting.
Dr. Luvada A. Harrison made her Carnegie Hall debut as soloist with the Manhattan Philharmonic and her Lincoln Center debut in Alice Tully Hall with the New York Choral Society as the soprano soloist in Rossini’s Stabat Mater. Dr. Harrison has performed with regional opera companies and symphony orchestras throughout the United States and Europe.
Sonia Duprez has worked professionally in education since 2003. She began her career with the New York City Teaching Fellows, an accelerated accreditation program designed to recruit teachers to high-needs public schools. She earned a M.Ed in Bilingual Education from the City College of New York in Harlem while teaching Spanish and bilingual kindergarten full-time in the South Bronx.
