“Arrested flight” of Phoenix : Translaboration in art production as (co-)translation

Wenhao Chen
Monash University

The blended concept of translaboration aims to explore the reciprocal engagement of translation and collaboration in each other’s enterprises. This study conceptualizes Xu Bing’s art installation Phoenix from the translaborative perspective as an artistic translation of China’s social realities and examines how Xu performs his subjectivity as an ‘artistranslator’ during the translation. Furthermore, since the production of Phoenix involves various human and non-human collaborators, and can therefore be seen as a co-translation, this study investigates how Xu’s subjectivity is encouraged and restricted by other actors in their translaboration. It finds that human and non-human actors can enjoy equally active roles in translaboration and deserve the same level of attention, countering the general tendency in Translation Studies to center on the former’s collaboration on, instead of with, the latter. This study also reaffirms the epistemological effectiveness of translation in probing artistic processes and products, which could help enhance our understanding of translation, art, and their translaboration.

Publication history

Date received: 17 January 2025

Date accepted: 9 March 2026

Table of contents

As Zwischenberger (2017, 388) observes, translation “has travelled to numerous disciplines in recent years.” It is true that, as a burgeoning “paradigm for innovation and transformation” (Perteghella 2019, 63), translation has lent itself to academic explorations in Translation Studies’ neighboring disciplines and fields of research. Turning their attention to artistic production, scholars have utilized the translation concept to examine the representation of reality through various art forms (Boria et al. 2019; Campbell and Vidal 2019; Ott and Weber 2019; De Francisci and Marinetti 2025), such as painting, photography, dance, music, media, and art. In light of this, Vidal Claramonte (2022) creates the neologism ‘artistranslator’ to describe artists who ‘translate’ the world/real with contemporary art in all its forms. In her view, their translating, above all, is the result of their way of seeing, understanding, and rewriting the world/real (50).

Funding

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Monash University.

Artworks referenced

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Address for correspondence

Wenhao Chen

School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics

Monash University

20 Chancellors Walk

3800 CLAYTON VIC

Australia

wenhao.chen@monash.edu
ORCiD logo with linkhttps://orcid.org/0009-0006-9408-3960
 
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