Museums As Translations Zones

By Antonio Díaz Oliva

Like many museum professionals, I don’t usually spend my days off at my workplace. But on the last day of the exhibition “entre horizontes: Art and Activism Between Chicago and Puerto Rico”at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago, I found myself alone in Chicago’s downtown—a rare occurrence. Walking along the shore of Lake Michigan, Bomba Estéreo playing in my earbuds, I suddenly felt I was in Latin America.

Following that I made my way to the MCA to see the exhibition“entre horizontes” because I felt entre horizontes, or between horizons—not in the United States nor Latin America but somewhere in between, or in a constant state of translation.

Opened in August of 2023, “entre horizontes” made history for the MCA. With this exhibition, all MCA’s galleries featured side-by-side English and Spanish labels. Two years before, the museum had launched its bilingual initiative to translate didactics, labels, supplemental materials, and other visitor resources into Spanish. That’s where I, the first Latino and Spanish-speaking editor, entered the picture. I joined the MCA to ensure Spanish translation is thoughtfully implemented and respected.

The Bilingual Initiative

The main impetus behind the bilingual initiative is to improve access for the Spanish-speaking visitors from Chicago, the US, and other countries. More specifically, we want the Hispanic-Latino population of Chicago (28.8 percent and growing, according to the US census) to feel that this is their museum, even if for a long time it didn’t quite speak to their lived experiences.

“entre horizontes” taught us how to incorporate translation in a meaningful way: what to repeat and what to avoid, how to translate already bilingual titles, and how to “translate” cultural and artistic efforts for different audiences—programming for Chicago’s Puerto Rican community is different than what we would create for, say, Italian or Chinese tourists.

We also sought feedback on how the public was reacting to this new MCA. A focus group made clear that we put too much emphasis on the art: for visitors, translating a label is as important as, for example, translating the bathroom signage. You need both to fully experience the museum, don’t you?

Connections between Translation and Interpretation Work

Since joining the MCA, I have learned that translating a museum has different challenges than, say, translating a book or subtitles for a movie. Museums need to balance complex ideas with accessibility when translating art while also being straightforward with informational materials and wayfinding signage.

But also, I have learned that translation has similar challenges as museum interpretation. Not coming from a museum background (but from academia, translation studies, and the publishing industry), one of the ways in which I was able to adjust was by understanding the role of interpretation. Like other institutions, the MCA holds a “big idea” meeting for each exhibition, facilitated by the department of interpretation (led by Jeremy Kreusch, our Director of Interpretation and In-Gallery Learning). It’s the first of many steps in the interpretive planning process to identify the key concepts that may inform curatorial texts, educational programs, and even media strategies or collaborations with external partners.

After attending some “big idea” meetings, it became clear to me that both translation and interpretation are all about context. You interpret for an institution based on the needs and characteristics of the geography of that institution, and the populations that come to the museum; in the same vein, translation changes depending on the place where you are. It’s not the same translating from English to Spanish for a museum in Spain (where traditional or Castilian Spanish is hegemonic) than for the MCA in Chicago (where English is the hegemonic power and Spanish a language where many variants and dialects intersect).

The Why of Translation

Because of that, it became clear to me that translation (just like interpretation) needed some documentation behind. To address these and other issues, I am developing guidelines, resources, and methods, including a Spanish style guide that mirrors our English one. This guide will cover grammatical usage in Spanish (¿usted o tú?) and include a section on the history of Spanish in the US and Chicago, one of the few places you can find MexiRican Spanish.

Additionally, for the past year, I have been drafting a translation statement for the MCA that highlights the role of translation and the translator—not just in our museum and in the contemporary art world but how it aligns with other similar practices in society. The MCA’s translation statement will include these five guiding ideas, among others, some of which closely relate to museum interpretation.

1. Museums are already translation zones. Translation—the movement between languages and cultures—has always been integral to museums. Artists communicate through visual, digital, intertextual, and hypertextual languages. Curators translate these into written language for museum labels. This process bridges diverse systems of meaning. 
2. Words signify world views. Museums labels are more than informational—they reflect perspectives. Incorporating languages beyond English can broaden access and challenge monolingual world views, perhaps even lead visitors to question the dubious notion of “American exceptionalism.” With translation, the MCA can move from the comfort zone of English monolingualism in its galleries to a new semiotic landscape that reflects the complex linguistic and cultural realities of Chicago, the US, and the globalized world.
3. Translation sustains societal connections. By emphasizing translation, a museum can acknowledge its role in broader society: children translating for immigrant parents or interpreters aiding refugees. By incorporating translation as a visible practice, the MCA is highlighting how it sustains daily life throughout society.
4. Artists interrogate linguistic dominance. Many artists, like Croatian conceptualist artist Mladen Stilinović in his work An Artist Who Cannot Speak English Is No Artist, use text in in their art to highlight the ways language shapes perception and enforces power structures. Museums should embrace these critical explorations, engaging with art that expands on themes such as migration, diaspora, and identity.
5. Translation sharpens our language use. It invites us to question words and concepts we take for granted. For instance, what does “America” mean to someone in Chicago’s mostly Mexican neighborhood La Villita versus someone from Latin America or Spain? Is America a continent or a country? Who decides? And why?

Translation can encourage audiences to questions things they may take for granted and reflect on different viewpoints. In a museum, this practice not only enhances accessibility but also deepens the sometimes confounding, and always mesmerizing, exploration of identity and life through contemporary art.