Exile often expressed through art

By Lina Shoumarova

Some 80 scholars, students and writers from as far away as Australia, Portugal and Venezuela gathered at Concordia last week for the three-day colloquium Dis/Location: Writing Exile/Migrancy/Nomadism/Bordercrossing.

Reflecting its theme, the event took place in three languages, English, Spanish and French. It featured readings and presentations about displacement and belonging from literary and social science perspectives.

José Antonio Giménez Micó, Hugh Hazelton and Goretti Ramírez, professors in the Department of Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics, were the organizers.

“Contemporary culture is in large part the work of people who are ‘out of place’: exiles, émigrés, expatriates, and refugees,” Giménez Micó said. “People confronted with this problem in the most direct, painful way are in the best ‘dis/positioned’ to tell us not necessarily how to resolve it, but at least how they deal with it.”

The event opened with a touching presentation by Argentine-Canadian scholar, writer and artist Nela Rio from St. Thomas University in New Brunswick. In her speech, “Migration as Transformation: the Poetics of Displacement,’ Rio oscillated between English and Spanish, prose and poetry.

One of her virtual paintings, Traducción/Translation/Traduction, was chosen as a symbol for the colloquium. She also brought with her a selection from the itinerant exhibition Outspoken Art/Arte Claro, which is dedicated to the UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women. The exhibit represents a collection of artwork and poetry by more than 100 Spanish and Spanish-American creators.

Two other writers were guest speakers: Nora Strejilevich, an Argentine-born novelist now living in America, and Luis Torres, a Chilean-Canadian who is director of the graduate program in Spanish at the University of Calgary. They both have written extensively on the experience of leaving their native land because of political repression.

With an attendance that exceeded their expectations, the organizers said they couldn’t be happier with the way the event turned out.

“When we sent out the call for papers, we predicted that it would be an event mainly in Spanish,” Giménez Micó said. The response was overwhelming.

“We received approximately 150 proposals for papers and creative readings from all around the world in English, French, and Spanish, tackling an extremely large array of authors, periods, and texts.”

Hugh Hazelton added, “We are living in an age of huge population shifts, massive immigration, and large-scale movements of exiles and refugees due to political and military repression.”

The organizers wanted to thank all those who contributed to the success of Dis/Location 2005, particularly the students of the Department of Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics, as well as to all the organizations that provided financial support.