The British Council – the UK’s cultural relations and educational opportunities organisation – required a professional film and video translation service for seven films to support the British Council International Touring Exhibition “Lose Your Mind”, a collection of works by the British contemporary artist David Shrigley.
Read MoreRecognising the importance of art as a far-reaching medium, the British Council wanted to ensure the artist’s work was translated into Spanish and Portuguese in a way that would not only represent what David Shrigley was trying to portray, but also resonate meaningfully with the desired audience – something the use of online, catch-all translation tools simply can’t do.
After competing with a number of other translation agencies, Romantic lines was selected by the British Council’s media agency to translate the video content into Spanish and Portuguese for both Latin American and European audiences.
Through its worldwide network of professional translators, Romantic lines was able to review and translate the artist’s films, providing subtitles tailored for the relevant audiences. We were able to undertake this work with art-specialised and locally based translators, ensuring perfect expression of the artist’s essential message across cultures.
One of the British Council’s key aims is promoting and sharing art between cultures and across borders, and Romantic lines’ translation expertise enabled the organisation to share David Shrigley’s short films with Latin American and European audiences, allowing those regions and cultures to understand and enjoy a key part of the artist’s work. Art has the power to cross cultural divides, but it is important that the artist’s message remains the same regardless of the language. By using local translators who can understand the content of the work and its impact in its original form, Romantic lines helped the British Council to bring Shrigley’s art to a wider and culturally diverse international audience.
Romantic lines has continued working with the British Council since this project in 2015 and has been involved in many more exciting and inspiring culturally significant video translation projects which often present with quite challenging translation requirements.