Morten Debald (editor)

Have a look at the book teaser for a visual sneak preview.

Sometimes non-native speakers, when expressing themselves in a language other than their own, come up with the most striking phrases and linguistic curiosities. It is this idiosyncratic way with words – often groundlessly taken to be incorrect – that Morten Debald is most interested in. For his anthology he gathered the work of fifteen foreign-language authors and nine foreign photographers. The starting point for each story is the photograph. Photography can be seen as a lingua franca in itself, a neutral space in which nobody has the rule over the language. For language philosophers like Morten Debald association is a mechanism underlying all poetic speech.

Lingua Franca (from the Italian for »Franconian language«) refers to a commercial language which was used up until the 19th century on the south and east coast of the Mediterranean. It originated from a variation of Italian which had been enriched by a great number of words taken from Arabic, French, Greek, Spanish and Turkish. In this way, the Lingua Franca enabled people with different native languages to communicate with each other.

Authorship: Douglas Pompeu, Trevis Annoni, Seda Güngör, Roland Vernet, María Lanusse, Mário Gomes, Samuele Maniscalco, Camila Gonzatto, Reinaldo P. Almeida, Borja López Alascio, Dorothée Fraleux, Tania Domingo Moreno, Carlos Gomes, Anastassia Akel, Martín Del Valle
Photographers: Eva Carracedo, Yuri Kim, Tena Srdelić, Esther Bondì, Luis Pliego, Azzurra Pettorossi, Elisa Balmaceda, Marta Leite, Aleksia Halilaj

Book launch with reading: 06.06. Oblomov, Lenaustraße 7, 12047 Berlin