Living Language in London

An exhibition at the East Gallery, London, until January 2009

In celebration of the International Year of Languages and the diversity of London's languages and cultures, East Gallery in Stratford (East London) is hosting Living Language, an exhibition curated by Nathalie Palin and designed by Jen Fraser, and running from mid October until 10th January 2009.

The exhibition features work by local artists, including selections from John Wynne's sound and photographic installation Hearing Voices, calligraphy by Sabah Arbilli, Orkideh Sassouni's photographs on sign language, Fiona Zobole's textile pieces, and prints by Stefanos Pavlakis.

The exhibition also includes displays on Endangered Languages, Sign Languages, and The Languages of London. The text and images for the Endangered Languages display come from materials that we developed at SOAS for the Endangered Voices exhibition held in 2005, while information on The Languages of London was drawn from Peter Austin's 1000 Languages. David Nathan provided multimedia materials on a range of languages that are set up on computers for visitors to interact with. CILT, the National Centre for Languages, also supplied supplementary educational materials on language diversity and UK community languages, including a great booklet called Positively Plurilingual.

The exhibition highlights linguistic diversity and encourages visitors to participate through the interactive multimedia and other activities including a wall where people can fill in postcards in their own language and put them up to for others to see.

For more information see the East Gallery website, the exhibition opening, and Peter Austin's blogs on language diversity in London and on this exhibition.