Ting-Ting Cheng – I know what you are trying to say

Posted by Fabio 13 July 2012

I know what you are trying to say is the first solo show of Taiwanese artist Ting-Ting Cheng in UK. It comprises three closely connected works, using video, photography and an interactive card game. The exhibition explores language, communication and cultural identity. From the perspective of a foreigner living in London, Cheng is particularly interested in how people relate to, understand, or misunderstand unfamiliar languages and cultures.

For the photographic series, I judge a book by its cover, Cheng borrowed library books in languages she didn’t understand – literally selecting the books by their covers. In these large-scale photographs the books are viewed stacked up from the side like dense towers of inaccessible information. For Cheng the work is symbolic of the barriers that language can create; how the simple fact of not being able to understand a language can exclude people within a society.

Mechanism of speaking Chinese is a card game, which can be played by visitors. Participants are asked to take a number of cards containing English words that sound like Chinese words, and read them out in front of a camera. The ensuing string of words is nonsense in both languages, and sounds like someone mimicking Chinese. Drawing on the derogatory Western phrase “ching chong”, the work questions negative cultural stereotypes associated with the apparently “meaningless” sound of an unknown language. Conversely In Dubbing Project, not being able to understand becomes a tool to create new meanings and narratives, also suggesting the potential for communication beyond words. Cheng asks people with different native languages to interpret scenes from Taiwanese films, to imagine what is being said from the body language, tone of voice and mood. The original version is dubbed with the new translation, in the new language, creating a different scene and atmosphere.