Life’s Too Short: On Translating Christian Marclay’s Photo-Book The Clock

Abstract

Literary translator and poet Jen Calleja discusses the process of translating the photo-book The Clock—the catalogue of the film installation of the same name by artist Christian Marclay—into poetry in order to explore what a feminist translation might look like via an experimental translation practice. Featuring examples of the poems created from her self-initiated intersemiotic translation project, Calleja tackles issues such as translating sexist and misogynistic texts and source materials, how a translator’s subjectivity affects the translations they produce, and the agency—or lack thereof—that a translator has to choose and comment on the texts she translates.