Translating an Exhibition. Co-producing Local Responses to Transnational Research.

The aim of this proposal for follow-on funding is to develop the collaborative practices of the Transnationalizing Modern Languages (TML) project, one of the large AHRC grant under the Translating Cultures theme. Since 2014 TML has been investigating the development of modern Italian culture and its interactions with other cultures in contexts of migration. The project has also been developing innovative research and pedagogy practices, based on knowledge exchange and the co-production of research outputs with the subjects of its research - i.e. the people, artists and cultural associations that have shared memories and materials through the project's fieldwork. The exhibition "Beyond Borders: Transnational Italy" is a major output of TML and displays examples of people's experience of Italian culture from across the globe. Photographs, audio and visual recordings, art installations and other materials gathered through the fieldwork are mounted in a series of augmented reality installations produced in close collaboration with the subjects of research and a team of professional Art curators and software developers, Routes Agency. The exhibition represents the most advanced contribution of TML to the innovation of research practices and ideas of academic knowledge.

This proposal aims to bring the project exhibition for the first time into a Mediterranean country connected to Italy via historical and contemporary circuits of migration, namely Tunisia. In this multilingual and multicultural context, where Italian is very popular across multiple sectors of the society, this project will provide to teachers and learners of Italian, as well as to the wider Arabophone and Francophone public, the opportunity to consider the local development of Italian heritage in the light of the wider transnational context explored by TML. As partners in activities of the project, the Italian Cultural Institute and La Manouba University will ensure the engagement of students and audiences of their networks. Beyond the metropolitan context of Tunis, the project will address women and community associations through the involvement of COSPE Onlus, the NGO partner of the initiative.

The exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute in Tunis will be at the center of a series of activities for targeted audiences, including a workshop hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of La Manouba University. The main outcome of the workshop, convened by Dr. Barbara Spadaro and Routes Agency, will be a series of new installations for the TML exhibit, co-produced with Tunisian students as a response to the TML project to show the multicultural and multilingual context of Tunisia. The participants in the workshop will be exposed to innovative research and curatorial practices, and invited to reflect critically on the processes of memorialization and translation of the different cultures and languages that characterize the Tunisian context. The participants will learn how to translate in multi-sensorial and multi-media installation their own research. In so doing they will provide both feedback and a continuation of TML research on memory, translation and transculturality, while contributing to the development of new forms of knowledge exchange. The project will give to the PI and her non-academic partners (namely Routes Agency) the opportunity to develop further the impact activities of TML in the specific context of Dr Spadaro's research, where she will be also exploring further need and opportunities to apply her research in practical contexts. While training her skills for project management, the project will feed into the process of self-evaluation of the Translating Culture Theme and contribute to its overall legacy.

The aim of this proposal for follow-on funding is to engage new audiences with the TML project, by bringing the project exhibition to the Italian Cultural Institute (ICI) in Tunis as a basis for the development of a series of activities for targeted audiences and a workshop producing a local TML exhibition. The project will feed into the process of self-evaluation and self-reflection of TML, notably its practices of the co-production of research with its partner Routes Agency and the new non-academic partners of this application.

Beyond its academic impact, the project will benefit audiences all of which are profoundly interested and invested in, and would benefit from understanding of, cross-cultural exchange, such as language teachers and learners as well as the communities that will be involved in the fieldwork of the participants to the workshop.This proposal is based on close collaboration with the ICI and COSPE Onlus, acting as partners and facilitators of the project. The ICI of Tunis will advertise both exhibitions - the TML exhibition and the exhibit of the new installations that will be co-produced through the workshop - as widely as possible across its networks and audiences. They will ensure that groups from schools and cultural institutions across Tunisia, as well as locally based artists and writers whose work addresses similar themes, will see and interact with the exhibits, and they will assist the PI in organizing appropriate events and visits.

The ICI is both a beneficiary and a facilitator in the project. The promotion and dissemination of the TML exhibition Beyond Borders: Transnational Italy fulfils their mission of enhancing understanding of Italian heritage in Tunisia and of support to a wide and established network of educational institutions and associations that offer courses of Italian. This proposal will provide teachers and learners of Italian in Tunisia with the opportunity to consider the local development of Italian heritage in the light of the wider transnational context explored by TML.
This proposal enhances the value of the multilingual education practices established in Tunisia, where Italian is historically very popular. The ICI will ensure that the project benefits from considerable visibility among educational authorities and policy-makers across the Mediterranean. The ICI will create a forum dedicated to this project on its website, and guarantee that it resonates through the global network of the Italian cultural institutes via the institutional website Portale della Lingua Italiana (https://www.linguaitaliana.esteri.it/) and the 2018 Italia-Cultura-Mediterraneo programme endorsed by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some students will gain professional experience as Translators and Editors for these contents.

The installations co-produced at La Manouba will be mounted in a second exhibition that will open at the ICI at the end of the workshop. This is expected to have considerable impact among the communities from which the students will gather their research material. These communities will have the opportunity to see and engage with their histories translated into the global context of the TML research, and to experience through interactive installations new ways to convey and share their cultural heritage. They will be exposed to fresh understanding of the multicultural and multilingual context of Tunisia.

The exhibits and the workshop will address audiences made up of people from different parts of Tunisia, beyond the metropolitan environment of Tunis. COSPE will facilitate the engagement of students of English and Humanities involved in their projects in the town of Jendouba, in North-West Tunisia, with the workshop at La Manouba University. In order to explore further local needs and opportunities for knowledge exchange, COSPE Onlus will also introduce Barbara Spadaro to the Rayhana Women's Association of Jendouba.