TRANSLATING KUIR MAGAZINE

about what we do in relation to translation.”
Since the beginning, the problem has taken three different directions guided by three questions
that will inevitably remain open: how to translate bodies/presences, how to translate words
and how to translate cultures. Each festival has chosen its guests, who they call meaningfully
“provocateurs,” from their respective country and reality. What do the participants of these
meetings have in common? Not knowledge, nor languages, nor ages, nor origins. The
provocateurs’ function, as put forward by the hosts, “is to participate in the process without
focusing on the results; we simply expect it to happen.” Free from the need to yield a conclusion,
the provocateurs share their modest findings, their intuitions, as well as their doubts. At times
the exhibition takes the form of a secret, a curriculum vitae, a speech, a manifesto, a poetic
work. It is from this “lack” that the invitation to “provoke” established a fertile ground for
the exchange of perspectives and unfinished theorizations. “Translation wants fast answers
to complex problems, how about we keep searching before we declare ourselves powerless?”
The adventure continues
As a warning or conclusion, as shade under which to attentively rest, Spaniard Paco Vidarte
launches a critical cry in light of the ways in which the concept of queer, queer theory and their
consequences in everyday life have advanced:
“Queer, in addition to many other things, when converted into theory, say, into chewing gum/
rubber, becomes as hegemonic and colonial as any other way of thinking, creating its castes,
hirearchies, specialists, popes, conflicts for the crown, affective-intellectual disputes, I was first,
I got here before you, they’re a newcomer, you don’t know anything, that one is not our friend,
I broke up with you, esoteric circles, groups of the initiated, emotional gangs, self-satisfied
smiles, hordes of proselytes and no small dose of good conscience, and saving and evangelizing
spirit. The inexplicable demand for authenticity (what an unqueer value!) that can sometimes
be detected among us with explicit accusations of cynicism or fraud that lead many people to
personal destruction, somewhere between the leave everything, take up your cross and follow
me and the old revelation’s iluminating sparkle of surrogate bourgeois postmodern crossing
cables: if you are queer by your own decision, you assume a certain disgraced condition, you do
appeal to the law nor any kind of authority, you collectivize personal work, you renounce your
own name, to have a job, you have to survive miserably, to do rare things, to live in a certain
helplessness, you take a liking to provocations, to volunteerly occupying spheres of marginality,
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