Love and translation are both meant to bring us closer to someone or ones outside ourselves, and transform us in the process. Translation is often presented as an antidote to the myopia of monolingualism, just as love claims to have the strength to bridge difference. But linguistic exchange continues to serve empire even as it opens windows in the world, and love—often configured as laying claim to—can breed possessiveness and insularity. With such rickety bridges, we aren’t crossing above innocent terrain. And somehow, there is still power in reaching.

In layered experimentations with translation through all their languages—mother, lover, learner tongues—translators and writers Kira Josefsson and Jacqui Cornetta explore the both porous and unyielding boundaries between people and languages. Their lecture-performance will be followed by a conversation with Saskia Vogel about how this project has taken shape since its first forms at the Us & Them reading series in Brooklyn and the ALTA conference in 2018.