Broken English is an artist’s book about European colonization and its effect on modern society, especially regarding language. The Prologue and Punctuation Marks blend English dictionaries with languages from Britain’s former colonies. In this case, India and East Africa. Punjabi, Swahili and English intermingle in a composed cacophony. Having imposed itself on every page, the English language dominates the installation. The Prologue and Punctuation Marks also contain pages from novels in the Western literary canon that are hailed as classics. These include Moby Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Canterbury Tales, The Last of the Mohicans, and Heart of Darkness. A shared motif is that of the European or American male traversing foreign territories. When the men interact with people of color, authors often depict the latter as violent and unintelligent; they speak with broken English.
Riddled with negative depictions, these tales continue to reinforce Western social hierarchies. To counter that, I dismembered pages from the books and literally disrupt the narrative. By mixing the dictionaries and stories together, Broken English directly connects invasion, imposition, and implication. The publications’ page’s proximity to one another recalls European explorers’ initial contact with the Global Majority. It asks audiences to assess the legacies of colonialism, race-based hierarchies, and the relationships between standard English, history, power, and national identity.
(2020)
