Language As A Process of Free Creation: Keywords Discussions at Tate Liverpool
Head to Tate Liverpool this afternoon for a lively masterclass in words and meaning…
Imagine Newsnight/Wright Stuff regular, journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, passionately discussing with you her interpretation of the word ‘Violence’, confiding in you why she had a broken relationship with her father, and how she deals with internet trolls?
That’s exactly what happened to us last time we attended Tate Liverpool’s Keywords Discussions, a lively and intimate round of 15 minute talks in the gallery spaces, exploring the meaning of the most important words in our language. Based on Raymond Williams book of the same name, the ‘key’ words in Tate’s latest exhibition — like ‘Structural’, ‘Private’, ‘Folk’, and ‘Criticism’— are used often in our vocabulary, and frequently evolve in meaning, depending on context, history and social norms. Here they are paired with a huge range of provocative British artworks, in order to instigate a discussion on what we think they mean.
One of those exhibiting artists, Sutapa Biswas, this afternoon takes on the 15 minute challenge, alongside Karen Alexander, Senior Tutor in Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, and Dr Amna Malik, Senior Lecturer in History and Theory of Art at Slade School of Fine Art. All will choose one word to discuss around an artwork of their choice.
“Art history has been significantly affected by visual culture and cultural studies in the last 10-20 years,” says Dr Amna Malik. “The work of people like Kobena Mercer, Stuart Hall, have been important to art history and are in one way or another linked to Raymond Williams work.
“There are so many [words] to choose from but I was struck by the word ‘Individual’, which I think has dominated the public domain to an even greater extent since the book was written.”
One of the things we asked the last group of Keywords Discussion speakers, including Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, was what word they would nominate for a new version of the book? She nominated ‘Class’, arguing that it has changed fundamentally over the years to mean ‘white working class’, and has a new relevance to the phrase ‘multi-culturalism’.
So what would Dr Amna Malik choose?
“The word ‘Debt’ is very much in circulation now, but whether its meaning is fixed is perhaps up for debate. I’d say we need to ask what debt is, given the government’s big bail outs of failing banks.”
As linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky once said, “Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied.” If Keywords does one thing well, it is to challenge what we think we know about words and the way we use them.
Laura Robertson
Keywords Discussions continues this afternoon with Amna Malik, artist Sutapa Biswas, Karen Alexander, Senior Tutor in Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, and Dr Amna Malik, Senior Lecturer in History and Theory of Art at Slade School of Fine Art
Tate Liverpool (Level 4 galleries), Thursday 8 May 2014, 3-4.30pm, FREE — book here
