@inproceedings{01GQEY1P01BHJJ267N5FH96BZ6,
  abstract     = {{Translating spaces of migration: the case of the Red Star Line Museum

Our paper sets out to chart the role of translation in the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. Set up in 2013 in the historic sheds of the shipping company, the memorial-museum documents the journey of the two million European passengers that crossed the Atlantic between 1873 and 1934 in search of a better life. It transposes its main theme – migration – into a particular scenography and architecture that draws attention to concepts of space and transfer, encouraging present-day visitors to follow in the migrants’ footsteps and to establish links between past and present. 

We will underscore how the translational experience of migration is rendered in the museum’s multilingual archive and discuss the various representational techniques that help visitors experience or imagine places and spaces of migration. Furthermore, if visitors are drawn into the stories of the 20th century migrants through a reflection on, and experience of, shared spaces, it is crucial to understand how translation “proper” can cause cracks in the museum’s carefully constructed spatio-temporal framework. In line with recent conceptualizations of translation, and following research by Neather (2008), Sturge (2007) and Valdeón (2015), the analysis of smaller text units (translation-in-the-museum) will be connected to larger patterns of thinking and meaning-making (the-museum-as-translation).}},
  author       = {{Spiessens, Anneleen and Decroupet, Sophie}},
  booktitle    = {{IATIS conference, 7th, Abstracts}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Barcelona, Spain}},
  title        = {{Translating spaces of migration : the case of the Red Star Line Museum}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}