Veronika Yadukha has been working in AVA’s Sculptural Studies Building to produce clay vessels for the exhibition Rantau, Black Family Visual Arts Center, Dartmouth College, April 9-18. The discussion will focus on how their collaboration uses transmedial translation to connect written and visual arts. Lethokuhle Msimang is a South African poet and co-author of the Rantau project. She translates Veronika Yadukha’s ceramic practice into poetry, while Veronika creates ceramic vessels inspired by Lethokuhle’s poems. Themes explore migration, liminality, and the fluidity of identity. The project weaves together poetry and pottery exploring the often hidden dimensions of pain and isolation experienced by those living in-between spaces. Lethokuhle’s poetry reflects the fragility of the black body and its unregistered precarity, while Veronika’s pots demonstrate a tactile embodiment of these concepts. The poems are not mere accompaniments but integral elements that guide the interpretation of the ceramic pieces, creating a dialogic relationship between word and form.
Veronika Yadukha is a transmedial translator, ceramic artist, and art curator from Ukraine. She holds an MA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College, is a member of VERBatsiya, a collaborative translation group, a board member of the TRANSLATORIUM NGO, and a co-founder of the TRANSLATORIUM Literary and Translation Festival, an annual event in Ukraine that builds community and explores translation as art. Veronika has been working at the intersection of different arts, focusing mainly on transmedial or intersemiotic translation, bringing literature into the language of theater, installations, murals, and music. Veronika’s recent practice explores the transposition of poetry and prose into ceramics, while also researching the potential of pottery as a medium.  Click here to visit Veronika’s website.
Lethokuhle Msimang is a Poet and Writer born in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. Graduated with a BA in Literary Studies and Creative Arts at the American University of Paris, completed an MA in Creative Writing at Rhodes University. More recently, graduated with an MA in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth College, where she was honored with an Academic Achievement Award. Her work has been featured in several esteemed publications, including New Coin, New Contrast, Grocott’s Mail, Hanging Loose, The Paris Atlantic, Il Tolomeo, The Clamantis, and Stanzas (among others). The Frightened is her debut novella, published by Karavan Press. She presently works as a researcher at Dartmouth College. Click here to view Lethokuhle’s website. Â
