When we translate, what do we mean by fidelity? What do we preserve, destroy, or add when carrying text across languages—and why?

Translation theory, the branch of literary theory invested in translation, has spent years debating questions of faithfulness, form, meaning, and transformation. Walter Benjamin’s The Task of the Translator tells us that translation itself is not merely a transmutation of some other text—it is a literary form unto itself, with its own laws and conventions, including what to bring along and leave behind. We tend to think that a “faithful” translation involves prioritizing semantic meaning over other attributes—but Benjamin reminds us that a poem’s meaning is equally tied up with aspects like sound, meter, or visual form that may be important in themselves. How might we use these aspects to our advantage, and view this recreation as a process of both loss and gain?

My BLUE project aims to create new methods of experimental translation to help us move through text in new ways. Challenging the myth of the translator’s invisibility, I hope to change translation from its misconception as a rote, passive act into a space of exploration, experimentation, and play.