Forthcoming Exhibition: Words and their Meanings
This project, funded through the EXPLORE initiative, will bring artistically inclined students, alumni, and staff of NUIG into close collaboration with the Academic Writing Centre to create a visual exhibition that would engage with the changing meanings of commonly used words.
Words such as ‘advertisement’, ‘gossip’, or ‘glamour’, to give a few examples, have a rich and surprising history which is recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary. The word ‘glamour’, now associated primarily with pop culture, used to mean enchantment. Tennyson defined glamour as a ‘species of witchcraft’. At its source, moreover, ‘glamour’ is a corrupt form of ‘grammar’. The Academic Writing Centre would enable artists to provide a visual commentary on such changes.
Exploring the role of language in an increasingly visual culture, the exhibition will draw attention to the importance of words and to the facts that their meanings are historically and culturally conditioned.
The project leaders are Irina Ruppo Malone (AWC), James Simmons (AWC), and Helen Gomez (Art Soc).
James Simmons and Irina Ruppo Malone will work with artists, providing the necessary research and taking account of the specific interests of each artist.
If you would like to take part in the project please contact us at writingcentre@nuigalway.ie
Please note that works should be two-dimensional and may include paintings, drawings, and photographs.
