Exhibit A: my expat life through scribbles.

I’m not exactly used to receiving emails which start with “Dear artists and writers,”. Who? Me? What? A few months ago, I sent a couple of links to my blog posts to Michaela Freeman from the Czech Centre in London, who is curating an exhibition about Czech expats living in the UK (+ British expats living in the Czech Republic as well, I think). She was looking for all types of art and writing which relates the experiences of living abroad.

Her original reply about my writing didn’t sound overly enthusiastic. She said it was “not too bad”, so I forgot all about it. But, bad or not bad or too bad or whatever it was … they’ve included me in their Lost in Translation exhibition, which you can preview online here. (The post which they picked is Strangers have the best candy.)

The actual exhibition will run from 1 – 19 November at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. The main event is on Sunday 14 November at 4.15 pm and there will be a film screening (of a documentary called Czechin London, which sounds fun!), followed by a moderated open discussion, followed by the opening of the exhibition. Tickets are £5.

I have no idea what to expect and I feel pretty nervous about going … (me, the non-artist, who shouldn’t really be there). Back in my flute-playing days, I used to frequently provide that little bit of intro music at art exhibition openings in little galleries in the Czech Republic, and these events were usually frequented by the same (very small) group of intellectuals from our town, who would always wear sophisticated scarf arrangements for the event, sip white wine and chat knowledgeably about the artworks … I would pack up my musical paraphernalia as quickly as possible and run. It was all a bit too grown up for me. But what the hell, it’s been some time since I stopped using anti-pimple cosmetics and switched to anti-wrinkle. Maybe I’ll bring one of my more arty friends for moral support.

Anyway, here is a bit of blurb about the exhibition from the email they sent me:

LOST IN TRANSLATION? explores what it's like to live in another country through the works of British and Czech artists and writers with experience of living in the opposite countries. Each works tell a different story about coping with the change of the environment, but what unites them is that it’s impossible for an artist not to be influenced by it in their work.

To most people, it doesn’t seem to matter where they come from until they move elsewhere. That’s when you really start to see who you are; to the point of surprising yourself with unexpected yearning for the national identity. The language barrier especially is something that even those resumed to visual communication can find staggering.

Settling into another culture is an emotional and adventurous process. The wonderment of things being different - cars on the other side of the road, learning to talk at great length about the weather and the tube announcements in an alien language. You take it all in with all your heightened senses, initially feeling displaced and uprooted, but gradually beginning to grasp your environment and redefining your identify. You are never going to be the same.