Hard Copy #15. Martina-Sofie Wilberger: ‘Mon petit alphabet / Mein kleines Alphabet’. Design B und R

Graphic design: B und R (Noah Bonsma and Dimitri Reist). Typeface: DaVinne by Reto Moser

Artist book, 112p, paperback, dust cover, 19 x 12 cm, B&W offset, uneven page cut, 2011. With texts and images by M.S. Wildberger. French/German. 350 copies. Collection editor: Delphine Bedel. Design editor: Barbara Fedier. Publishers: Geneva University of Art and Design, Monospace Press, Amsterdam. ISBN: 978-2-9700713-2-7. Copyright: M.S. Wildberger, HEAD - Geneva 2011. All rights reserved. (Photos by B und R) 

Mon petit alphabet/ Mein kleines Alphabet is a book written in two languages. It compiles poems written in both German and French by the artist Martina-Sofie Wildberger. The originals texts are mirroring their alter ego in the other language: the artist imagined translations in French for the texts originally written in German, and vice versa.

Inspired by her mother tongue, the Swiss German dialect, Martina-Sofie Wildberger implements certain of its sound patterns in her writing. She joggles with languages; she twists the conventional meaning of words using elements of folk tales and of the everyday life. The reading follows the rhythm of a racing horse whose images build a “flipbook”.

Based upon the difficulties she encountered while trying to translate her texts, the system used by the artist highlights the unfitness of literal translation. Indeed, the display of the book raises the limitations of translation and the impossibility of reaching the fundamental spirit of a text in another language. Thus, she proposes to enter a field where poetic and sensibility become an essential medium for a meaningful translation.