We would always begin by acknowledging each other and where we are coming from. Performing Translations started as a simple project. In many ways, it is a simple project; and yet its simplicity comes from the very complexity of both our individual practices and our relationship to one another.

I knew Yllang, Yume, and Chesca through different projects in the past, and it felt natural to connect the three of them for this work. The main task was translating Yllang Montenegro’s essay, “Ang Kalakasan at Pag-asa sa Sining [COVID-19 Journals]” from Filipino to English and Japanese. As a migrant worker about to come home to the Philippines when the pandemic hit, Yllang wrote about her particular experience of the crisis in Japan and how art-making became her meditation as she worried about her children back home. Moreover, her artworks also empowered a community of migrant workers like her, as the artworks also became an alternative source of livelihood at the onset of the crisis.

When I programmed Yllang as one of the artists for the Welcome Stranger to this Place curatorial project in Tokyo last March 2021, I regret not being able to include her essay as part of the exhibition. Finally, in September 2021, the four of us had our first official meeting to discuss our plans. It was clear that we wanted to go beyond just translating Yllang’s essay. We wanted to take this as an opportunity to connect, form a deeper relationship bridged by a reflexive process of translation.

Looking back through the process, I realize that Performing Translation meant two things.

First, to perform also means to execute an action. Our process surfaced the often invisible act of translation. In the online publication, the translator’s notes are present. In the presentation that we hosted last December 2021, we also shared the process of this project. Yllang shared more details about her art process, which are not in the essay, even sharing about sculptures and paintings that didn't make it to the exhibition. Chesca talked about her practice as a cultural worker and how she practices and values not just linguistic but also cultural, institutional, and even aesthetic translation. Yume shared feminist theories on translation, and introduced the bilingual intersectional feminist zine, B.G.U., which she is editor-in-chief of.

Both Chesca and Yume also talked about how they used the recording of Yllang reading the text in Filipino as a way to inhabit Yllang's voice. And while English was a shared language between the four of us, Yume was the only one fluent in Japanese. We trusted her completely to share Yllang's words to readers we really wanted to reach.

(Watch the recording of the talk presentation here.)

So here in this project, we are not performing as in doing a play or a theatrical piece. We are doing the translation, and the doing itself (i.e., the process) is as much of product as the translated text itself. The four of us, not exactly identifying ourselves as professional writers, found ourselves wanting to perform/do more than just speak through text. Yllang’s essay was important in bringing us together, but what transpires around the text itself and performing/doing the translation of the text, is what constitutes the project.

Second, Performing Translation also alludes to applying feminist theater pedagogies in the translation process. This meant doing devising exercises such as group warm-ups, storytelling, workshop sessions, to create a safe space and build a dynamic in the team, in the same way that theater ensembles do. We also saw parallels between the creative and cognitive processes of actors and translators interpreting a text. Both methods involve a form of translation.

At the beginning of the project, I planned to facilitate different kinds of activities mainly borrowed or modified from theater exercises and devising methods I have used or experienced in the past. However, as the weeks and months passed by, it was clear that somehow with the text as the starting point—that is, with the radical vulnerability and strength in Yllang’s story—all we needed was time together to speak and be listened to. Our discussions were rich, filled with laughter, sometimes tinged with anger, frustration, loneliness. But always, always, honest.

Allowing for a free flow of conversation–asking each other how we are, listening deeply and with curiosity about each other’s wins and losses, pains and triumphs as we all continued to face the pandemic from where we were…was still also, a feminist pedagogical approach. We listened to what the project needed—we did not need to control the time and space with this or that activity to forcefully evoke insight or tease out certain stories or trigger a specific emotion. All we needed was to allow our selves to unfold, and to be there for each other, fully present amidst the distance. As a theater practitioner, this particular part of the experience has been so valuable. There is indeed a tendency for directors and facilitators to have full “control” of the room all the time. My experience with this project was so different. There was so much freedom in being on a collaboration floor with no one wanting to take control of the room. More importantly, we were not “out of control” of the project too. We were all in shared control.

Chesca was also such a gracious project lead. Aside from translating the text into English, she was on top of all the deadlines, was keeping all the files organized, was the one who created the webpage, and wrote the report for our funding partner. Chesca’s approach was clear and organized but very very personal. The way she handled the overall project is also at the heart of this work. In one of our recent group chats, Yume shares that she hates the word “deadline” and how the very word itself is meant to induce so much anxiety. Chesca quickly comes up with the perfect word: “Let’s call it a target instead!” Needless to say, that warranted many heart emojis.

Then, naturally, when it was time to translate the actual text, Yllang's words reverberated through her two translators with a sense of intimacy. Words turn into emotions. And as these emotions are embodied, they are then transformed into another language as words again.

That is, translation performed.

Yllang wrote her essay in 2020. I now write this note in 2022. We continue to live in a wounded world, struggling with the never-ending wave of uncertainties from this global health crisis. We have been in survival mode for far longer than we could have ever imagined our hearts, minds, and bodies could actually take. We are, quite literally, in need of safe spaces. I hope to turn to feminist pedagogies of art-making and collaboration; as practiced in Performing Translations, as a way to survive, cope, and find strength in each other’s stories, and radical hope in one another.