i really like Ittai's idea below--especially
living here in Miami, where there are so many Latin American populations for
whom the same word in the same LANGUAGE can have a totally different meaning.
(i.e., papaya for a lot of countries is just a fruit, but the word papaya for
cubans is considered, uh, vulgar)
Now,
there's a concept for an exhibition:
Choose a word that sounds the same
but has a different meaning in two languages, invite artists from the
countries who speak the languages (say Brazil/Portugal and Israel in this
case) and commission them to make works that relate to the word, but to
consider the word's meaning in the other language as well. (Maybe the
relationship should be something like foreground and background colors in
photoshop, the foreground being the word in your language, background in the
other). Could be an interesting, think of the word "Zona" we were
blabbering about:
<--Portuguese-region /
Hebrew-whore-->
See you,
Ittai.
