Do you have an event, festival, contribution opportunity or other activity with a relationship to Asian Australian arts and culture? Just email us your information with a link to the relevant details and we will do our best to share with our readers.
- This event has passed.
Moving Tongues: Language and Migration in 1890s Melbourne
October 5, 2016 @ 8:00 am - October 30, 2016 @ 5:00 pm AEDT
Moving Tongues is a heritage exhibition, held at Melbourne City Library, curated by Nadia Rhook in partnership with La Trobe University. It will co-exhibit with John Young’s acclaimed art installation 1866: The Worlds of Lowe Kong Meng and John Ah Siug.
From the mid-19th century, the colonisation of Kulin lands saw migrants from far flung corners of the globe settle in Melbourne. Most spoke in English; others, in tongues including German, See Yup, Sam Yup, French, Hokkien and Italian. In the 1890s, some 1200 migrants from South Asia remade the city’s language-scape.
Now, the Supreme Court more frequently heard witnesses testify in Hindi, Pashtu and Arabic, and court interpreters were employed both to translate court proceedings and to survey Melbourne’s so-called ‘Asiatic’ centres of Little Bourke and Lonsdale streets.
The city’s halls of power, though, remained dominated by English-speaking men, and a proposed Immigration Restriction Act threatened to reduce the city’s linguistic diversity.
Moving Tongues and 1866 Launch: Wednesday 5 October, 6-8 pm
Moving Tongues city walking tour: Saturday 8 October, 12 -1:30 pm
Lost and Found in Translation panel talk: Saturday 15 October, 12-1pm
Please note: Peril provides these details as a courtesy, but we’re not in charge of the events, so please don’t harrass us if the Facebook page is down for a particular event – unless we make that really really clear, in which case you’ll know because we’ll probably be hounding to you come along.