Dying LanguagesGRADE 11 ARTWORKS

Darija Minic: Tsoa LanguageThe Tsoa language is a dying language spoken in Botswana. However, since not a lot of people preserve it and pass it down to the next generation, it is easily being replaced by the Setswana language, the national language of Botswana.

African tribes in Botswana are known for multiple artistic skills. One of them includes Thamaga pottery, as well as rock painting. The pottery is used for everyday life, but also for the commercial use.

The inspiration came from the culture of the Botswana people. Ceramic art, and therefore pottery, is an essential part of their art and culture. The idea, however, also came from the impressive art media called the rock painting. Therefore, the idea was for the vase to have rock painting carvings which are primitive. My vase serves as the representation of this culture because of the technique itself, but the rock painting/carving style decorations as well.

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This was an interesting and amusing process; however, it requires a lot of concentration and patients. It’s also messy, and time-consuming. Nevertheless, the result is pleasing, and the whole process gives a great experience.

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Richard Korn: Sowa Language

Pentecost’s island population mainly uses Raga (North Pentecost Island) and Apma (Central Pentecost Island) as the stronger two of a total of five different languages, the other three being Ske, Ska, and the recently extinct Sowa language.

Bungee jumping captured my attention, and the way that the towers were built out of many interlocking and bound together lengths of wood made things even more interesting. 

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Being the more hands-on type, I decided to build a structure out of wood I pilfered from the local green waste heap.  After fiddling around with the pieces of wood, laying them out on the ground, putting pieces together and breaking them apart again, sketching ideas and possible thoughts onto paper, I finally came up with something like this:

The rhythm of lines applies to this artwork as there are several smaller branches accentuating the main structural lines, much in same way that Piet Mondrian’s Rhythm of Black Lines artwork does. 

After fiddling around with the pieces of wood, laying them out on the ground, putting pieces together and breaking them apart again, sketching ideas and possible thoughts onto paper, I finally came up with something like this:

FINAL WORK

The Leonese language is a dying language spoken in the Spanish provinces of Léon and Zamora. The speakers of this endangered language are very fond of food, which actually is inspiration for this project- Still Life. 0000

Therefore, I found a picture of still life which includes two bottles, lemons and a bowl and chose one part of that picture which I later painted on canvas.

Marta Minić: Leonese

Matisse influenced the way I painted because his works emphasize painterly qualities and strong color over the representational values. Thus by using Matisse’s technique for the painting, I also incorporated a part of the Leonese culture.

FINAL WORK

Nikola Taušan: Pitjantjatjara

Pitjantjatjara is a language originating in Central Australia. It is a dialect of the Western Desert language. There are merely 2500 total speakers in the world, most of which are Northwest South Australia.

FINAL WORK

Danica Tančić: Franco-provencal

Franco-provencal is an endangered Romance language, with 113,400 total speakers left. The majority of speakers live in Aosta Valley, an autonomous region of Italy.

Forte di Bard

Forte di Bard, a tourist location and fortress in the small town of Bard, is the location that attracts me most in Aosta Valley. After I saw this night picture with the fortress lit up, it inspired me, and attracted me to the fortress. After I figured out that light is what attracts me about the fortress, I continued to research, looking for art involving light, usually white light, and space. I really admire some of the artists and artworks that I discovered, and they inspired me and further developed my ideas.

James Turrell

Dan Flavin

With a combination of my inspirations, I linked my passion for lights, reflection, minimalism, and directness to Franco-Provencal in my installation, Total. Total is made out of six tubes which reflect the number ‘113400’ with white light, onto a matching set of tubes, using the font Caviar Dreams. ‘113400’ represents the amount of Franco-Provencal speakers left, and the light reminds me of Forte di Bard at night.

FINAL WORK

Layos Groffman: North Frisian

Traditional Frisian sports: Skutsjesilen, FierljeppenActivities: hiking through mudflats

I am generally interested in sports so I looked up traditional Frisian sports which in some way I want to incorporate this cultural aspect in the painting.

Skutsjesilen: sailing on historical sailboats Fierljeppen: “pole long-jump” over water courses

My topic is North Frisian as a dying language, so I should also include the image of this language disappearing.Idea: a painting of the historical sailboat used in the traditional sport Skutsjesilen. This boat represents the dying language and collides with a rock. Since standart German is the main cause for the language dying, the rock and the wild sea are representetives for standart German.

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FINAL WORK

Božidar Karić: Nu Shu Inspiration: this year for spaces we had to do a project about dying languages, since the dying language I chose is Nu Shu I knew I would do something with calligraphy. it was by accident I stumbled on a piece of plywood with hammered nails in it. As I inspected it in more detail it started to come to me that it would be interesting to come up with letters based on Chinese calligraphy and to “write” them by hammering nails into a board.

FINAL WORK, detail

Procedure: this projected took me about four classes to complete, first I painted the board black to give contrast to the silver nails. With a white color pencil I traced on the letters then started to hammer in the nails. Since the nails where concentrated in a small group the dry board started to crack, then Mr. Ivan came up with an idea to drill holes in the board when the drilling was done I placed the nails in the holes and covered them with silicone so they wouldn’t fall out. at the end I repainted the board

FINAL WORK

Filip Caković: IrishFor these projects students attempted to represent one dying language that they chose through art. The language I chose is Irish. Irish culture as a connection to the Irish language is very unique and diverse in its own way, which allows plenty inspirations and freedom in my work.However I did not want to look deep in the Irish culture and traditions to find the inspiration. Because I am attracted to simplicity I choose to do a very simple, but effective installation. For me, the most important element in an art work is the message it sends. I decided to use a stuffed bird, raven, that will metaphorically represent death, and place it on a pile of vintage Irish literature.

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One of the difficulties I came across during my work was that I could not find any vintage Irish literature. This was the down fall of my project and I was very disappointed and mad because the project could not be effective if it loses in quality. My only solution was the one that I hoped I would avoid, to use any vintage books and make the covers relate to Irish literature by myself. I do not like to improvise because it lowers the quality of the work and it rarely comes out good.

  In order not to ruin the unique, vintage look of the books by coloring

the covers and writing on the sides I used a piece of see-through white cloth and with a bit of golden- brown tempera and water I made the cloth fit the vintage look of the book covers. I painted an Irish flag on a piece of cloth and after made the colours faded by washing the colour out. I placed the cloth on a side of a book and it came nicely together.

While I was working on decorating covers for books, I found a man who stuffs animals and gave him a dead raven to stuff it. I was lucky because usually the process of stuffing an animal, a bird, takes 1- 2 months, but the man was kind enough and finished it in two weeks.

When the books and the raven were finished I made a pile of books, I dug two holes in the book that was on top and placed the wires that were attached to ravens fangs inside the book.

FINAL WORK

Louis Toussaint: EnglishFirst of all what’s a language. Merely a form of communication. It can be art, it can be music, since both of these carry information. Spoken languages thought are mostly a way to communicate with people using your mouth and tongue, and by making noises, which stand for words and meanings. A dying language is a language that is being used less and less, and that will eventually stopped being used by anyone in the world. A dying language can also be a way of communication that has lost its sense, or its virtue. I chose the English Language, just as I could of chosen the French Language or any other spoken languages throughout the world, which aren’t usually defined as dying. Why? Because I believe that those languages, spoken by many people throughout the world, are slowly loosing their values, and that because of short messaging and technological writing in general. We all tend to cut out words when we write to a friend; none of us watch our spelling or grammar when chatting over the Internet or on our mobile, and some of us even tend to recreate those errors in any sort of typing.My Artwork, displays the earth, as green and flammable for two reasons: the environment and the end of the world. The loss of languages will surely end in the stopping of any communication between countries, and between people, and on the very long term it will be responsible for the end of the world. Of course I am being a little bit dramatic, and very extreme. All I am trying to say is that the English language can be seen as a dying language because nowadays no one takes the time to check their spelling or grammar.

What I decided to do, to represent the school’s project “Spaces”, and under the theme of Dying Languages, was to write a poem. In English of course, but by writing it in the way people usually write a text message. By cutting out words to the extreme, by replacing some words with numbers, and by doing anything possible to shorten their sentences. It is all a bit exaggerated, but the only aim is to emphasize the point described in the paragraph above.I had to cut my poem, and shrink it down to only two verses. I also had to change few words in order to make it “academic”, but the result is there: a poem which praises the loss of respect, the lack of tolerance, and the questionable existence of human’s ability to listen to their good conscience.This poem, written in red over the bursting green planet which our planet earth will probably look like when it comes to the end of the world. Talking about the background, I chose various tones of green to paint the planet as well as space. Space is painted in a very dark; tone, which of course portrays the emptiness of space, and the lack of consciousness, which is installed in us, humans. The planet is painted in all kinds of shades of green, going to a darker tone to a light one, even reaching out to an almost white tone of green. Why green? Because what we also lack on this planet is the amount of trees, and the global warming issue, which is becoming more present every week. It does not relate directly to my “dying language” but it can surely connect to the unawareness of the people of this planet.

The poem is written in red, which symbolizes of course, blood and death. It nearly resembles a warning, a prophet’s warning made to the people that says, “start learning your grammar or everyone will die.” Pretty extreme once again but the message is what’s important.

The original photograph taken from the Internet

Original Poem :

Society is such a disgracePeople are having sex on the streetswhat the hell happened to the human racebefore it was all magicnow everything's going balistic

whats the pointwhats the pointi dont get it anymoremy ears are sourfrom so much disrespectintolerance is kiling mewhy can't it go back to what it used to be?

Transformed poem :

Sciety is such a dsgracePpl are havin sex on da streetsWth happnd 2 da hman raceBfre it waz all mgicNw evrythins goin balisticWats da pointI dnt get it nymoreMa ears are sourFrm so much dsrspectIntolerance is killing meY cnt it go bck 2 wat it used 2 be ?

FINAL WORK

Yva Klarić: NukunuWhen doing research for this project, I decided to look at Australian history. There are many Australian tribal languages, many of which are extinct. Some of these include Martuthunira, Diyari, Doolboong, Nauo, Worimi and Mbabaram. Unfortunately these are a few languages among many and there are many more on the verge of extinction. The four that stood out to me were Awabakal, Woiwurrong, Nukunu and Damin. These languages are being preserved by tribal elders who are teaching the youth of the tribe or are trying to revive them. Damin is special because it is a revival of a ceremonial language used by the Lardil and Yangkaal tribes and is coming back because of the dedication of the tribal elders. On the other hand, Nukunu has less than 10 speakers left making it a true dying language. It was a very obvious answer as to what I would do as a work of art. Aboriginal Art is one of the most distinctive art styles in the world. It is full of symbols which convey the day to day lives of the tribes of Australia.I decided to take these symbols and make a dot painting with earthy colours to represent these languages and the culture that they come from.

Utilizing these symbols and the earthy colour scheme, I came up with this design. I used Acrylic paints on a canvas in earthy tones because it was an ideal consistency for the subject matter and I like its glossy texture.This painting ended up really well, it was fun to paint and I believe it positively and genuinely reflects the Australian outback and its people. The colours and the symbols all reflect the earthy and ancient feel of the land.

FINAL WORK

Banislava Jusufović: LivonianMy choice of language was Livonian; it comes from Baltic Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. Livonian is closely related to Estonian. The resident of the Livonian community is Livonia, which is located in Latvia. Ethnic Livonians are a small community and so they struggle in order to keep their language alive and present, actually there are only ten fluent speakers left.I first had trouble starting with this project, mainly because I couldn’t find a good idea. Then I started doing some research online about the Livonians or Livs as they call them and also traditional Latvian costumes and so I came across with the idea to create an outfit inspired by the Livonian culture and clothes but I also wanted to make it modern so that the younger people would enjoy it. The traditional Livonian costume for females includes a long, puffed up skirt, with a flowy white shirt, floral headbands and white socks always peeking through, even if the women are wearing sandals! Also Livonia had had many troubles in economy and in general they had rough times that were packed with wars and violence, so I still wanted to incorporate that warrior theme and aggressive element into the innocent traditional clothing with the floral details.

Livonian costume

fashion designI n s p i r a t i o n

I was indeed greatly inspired by the Livonian culture but in order to make the whole project more modern and upbeat I decided to research some of my favorite designers, such as Anna sui, Oscar de la Renta and many more… What better way to show you my inspiration than to actually show you the page that I devoted, from my notebook, exclusively for inspiration!? SKETCHES

Michael Zhou: Tibetan Ancient Tibet is full of mysteries. Buddhism, the special circumstance of the highland, Snow Mountains, traditions, costumes, all these factors consists a attractive Tibet.This is called ‘Jing Fan’ in Chinese. They are Buddhist books written on colored fabrics; Tibetans hang them on long ropes for religious reason. They consists beautiful abstract shapes because of its lines, curves, shapes and colors.Ancient Tibetan language is now fading out from Tibetan people’s life, there are only very few people who can speak or read it. We can see from some of the examples below, that they looks like a combination of Indian and ancient Chinese, which was caused by historical reasons.Snow Mountains are usually surrounded by mass of clouds, which gives them a mysterious atmosphere. They are significant and breath-taking when you look at them from distance. The simple combination of colors: black (shadow), white (snow), and Blue (sky) gives a perfect color contrast to the image.

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FINAL WORK