Transformative Heritage

My essay is informed by the affinity that I believe translation and cultural promotion share. The affinity I think of is not so much predicated on equivalence as on reciprocity, and the assumption that both the original and the translation as well as the present and the past are in constant mediation. How is the cultural legacy of the past and its artworks remembered, presented and promoted in and to the present is a question that most likely engages curators and policy makers on a daily basis. Not unlike translation, the answer to this question may depend on the strategies applied to turn an original text into another text for a given target audience. In the case of cultural heritage, the aesthetic language of the artistic past must seek ways to link, make sense and be accessible to the audience of today.