An inaugural festival presenting an ambitiously broad range of works and creativity.
Voiced: The Festival for Endangered Languages is an inaugural festival that sheds light on endangered languages from around the world through poetry, live music, visual arts, and more. This ambitious project is taking place at the Barbican Centre in London throughout October, featuring workshops, exhibitions, and live literature events ranging from panel discussions to experimental spoken word performances. With three days of packed audiences, the program has already proven its poignancy within London’s cultural scene.
Say Again: The Poetry of Invented Languages was one performance event in the Saturday afternoon session on October 18th. It aimed to highlight works that go beyond the confines of established language, exploring whether poetry can push communication past its existing boundaries into new and exciting forms. The event featured three artists—Stephen Watts, Joelle Taylor, and montenegrofisher—each bringing unique interpretations and creations in response to the theme.
Stephen Watts presented a short clip highlighting the interconnection between fossil patterns and poetry, followed by his own “drawing poems”—works that reside in imagery rather than words. His pieces engage with the prominent role of imagery in poetry, yet his “drawing poems” raise a question: by giving an existing art form another name, can we grant it a new identity or life? Since imagery is inherent to poetry and a poetic quality is often present in painting, this attempt seems to fall short of “inventing” a new form that offers fresh insight into either medium.
Joelle Taylor presented her own poetry, which draws on coded language from lesbian culture. Compared to Polari, a secret language in UK gay culture, the lesbian language she explored is, as she described, one of “absence” and “survival.” Through her lecture she reminds us that many words in queer culture are codes that use existing language while assigning new meanings. In this way, the language is continually “invented” and “reinvented” by its speakers, acting as a unique currency within the culture. Taylor offered a brilliant performance; her poems tell stories of identities, demeanors, and ways of living, and the content of her work resonates powerfully with its performed form.
Finally, the performance duo montenegrofisher took the audience on a wild ride. With an unapologetically experimental spirit, their work was a kaleidoscope of short pieces combining sound-making, performance, and spoken word devices, questioning the very boundaries of language and communication.
As an inaugural festival, Voiced presents an ambitiously broad range of works and creativity. It is a festival to look forward to as it grows into an even fuller and more ambitious version of itself in the future.