NO / EN
نام, name, navn may have hints to its past or the future
Shared by Sarah Kazmi | Traced by Cristian Ștefănescu
Image courtesy Sarah KazmiCall,
give a name to,
in the name of,
by the name of.
نام is a word or a combination of words by which a person, place or thing, a body or class, any object of thought, is designated, called, or known. Some names are inherited, some are given, and some are dedicated as a tribute to someone or something. While one word has many synonyms, they appear different in various context and languages; shifting, breaking and moulding into a new meaning, a new word, a new world… To go from one world to another, we have to go from one language to another and consider what we call translation.
“trans-lation,” “bringing across,” from norsk til urdu , from urdu to english. Growing up with different languages, I am interested in uncovering the ishaara words/names give us. What happens when we deconstruct those words? What stories, histories and future emerges, when we translate names and how can we learn from each other when we bring our knowledge of different language together? This course will help us in recalling, reading and analysing the origin of names and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history and how we approach them in the present.
Sarah Kazmi (b. Pakistan) lives and works in Oslo (Norway) and Karachi (Pakistan). She is an interdisciplinary artist and a writer whose artistic practice moves across research and visual production, observing the relationship between food, language and politics. She works with the medium of writing where her texts are visual, rhythmic and performative; often conveyed through a variety of disciplines, which includes sound pieces, video, installations and performance. Kazmi is also a policy advocate for Verdensrommet, an artist-led support network, founded in 2021, which is run by and for non-EU/EEA.
Cristian Ștefănescu is an architect based in Bergen. He was initially educated in the visual arts before continuing in architecture in Toronto, Stockholm and Bergen. His current practice is an amalgam of these two formal studies, and of his experiences growing up between Romania and Canada and living in Norway in recent years. In tandem with running his own art and architecture practice since 2013 Cristian is an Assistant Professor at the Bergen School of Architecture.
