| Description |
Artist Juan Cruz presents a fictional work in his personal translation of Miguel de Unamuno's 1914 modernist Spanish novel, entitled "Fog". Born in Spain of mixed English and Spanish parentage, Juan Cruz moved to Britain as a child. His work investigates the mechanisms of displacement, the gaps that exist in translation and the numerous ways in which place and cultural identity are interlinked. In this conceptual work, both the narrative in the text and the translation - which can potentially be viewed as a subservient creative act - function as critiques of the artist's role within contextual commissioning, yet Cruz still produces a work that is ultimately autonomous from that context. Cruz's work forms part of Other Plans, a project initiated as a critical response to the significant regeneration projects taking place in Newcastle and Gateshead against the background of the bids for City of Culture. |