During the residency, the two artists explored each other’s languages by writing and translating one another’s texts throughout the creative process. They connected their writing to Suomenlinna as a place that speaks about both language and plants. It is a place where one can attune to a way of being, where language and linguistic diversity are so present that the whole environment can become a third linguistic structure to work from.
The poets examined language from the perspective of togetherness — what understanding means in a friendship, where many factors play a role, such as our bodies, the sounds we create, the movements we adopt, and the language we build together.They explore how people understand one another when they speak two different languages that resemble each other. It is not about meeting halfway, but about meeting within each other’s languages, visiting each other’s linguistic realities, and transforming them into one’s own.
Ida & Olivia is a poet duo consisting of Ida Skibsted Cramer (DK) and Olivia McIntyre (NO). They ground their practice and methods in translation, and their poetic projects revolve around working in tandem and writing in their own and each other’s languages – through creative writing, creative reading, and creative translation.
