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LEBAB tells the story of the tower of Babel in the specific alphabets of 90 languages. The texts are behind glass and their haphazard arrangement on the wall creates the impression of a tower tumbling to the ground.
The myth of Babel is found in Genesis 11:1-9, with 11:9 containing the reference to Babel. The New York twin towers collapsed on 11 September 2001. In England this date will be written as 11-9-2001. Because the American date is written as 9-11-2001, the title of the piece LEBAB is BABEL written backwards.
The work poses questions about language and cultural difference: "Why, in the story of BABEL, was it better for the people representing the ideal of 'real' fellowship, striving to be the 'mightiest nation on earth,' to be deprived of their domineering unilingualism and uniculturalism? And why, in an anti-irredentist way, was it preferred that they splinter up into smaller groups representative of divergent languages?" |
