Art Exhibition Created By  Students and Faculty Explores the Power of Being Multilingual
 

An exhibition created by Rutgers-Newark students and faculty explores the experience of living between languages and the vital role multilingual communities play in shaping identity.

A Feeling of Itself, on view through June 1 at Project for Empty Space, a nonprofit arts organization in Newark, documents the experiences of multilingual residents and affirms language diversity as a strength.

The multimedia exhibition was created through a long-standing collaboration between Design Consortium, a Rutgers-Newark faculty-student studio at Express Newark, and Lives in Translation, a community-based initiative that offers translation and interpretation services to New Jersey residents alongside an academic training program through which students can earn nationally recognized certification.

A Feeling of Itself is part of a three-part program that has unfolded across multiple sites since March. The  exhibition combines interviews, photography, typography, light installations and data visualization to examine identity, translation, and migration through the concept of “arraigo,” or a sense of belonging rooted in language and culture.

“Our aim is to reflect the experiences of what it is to live between languages, the superpower of being bilingual or multilingual,” said Stephanie Rodriguez, director of Lives in Translation.

At the exhibition’s opening last month, Rutgers-Newark Chancellor Tonya Smith-Jackson emphasized the significance of preserving multilingual traditions.

“It is so important that you walk every day in the pride of the languages that you speak, so that you can keep them alive, and even more so, so you can pass them down to those who come after you,” Smith-Jackson said. “Because without passing that down, a people become isolated.”

Led by Rutgers-Newark designers, Professor Chantal Fischzang and instructor Gisela Ochoa, with support from recent graduates Jhoselyn Contreras Sangurima and Yulisbeth Rojas-Romero, the work on view extends years of collaboration with students.

Woven throughout the exhibition are multilingual quotes from community members, displayed in Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, Korean, Urdu, Portuguese, Swahili, Hebrew, and a dozen more languages. It highlights Lives in Translation’s data and impact through artwork drawn from research on multilingualism in Newark and across all three Rutgers campuses.

A Feeling of Itself,  created in response to increasing political hostility against immigrants, was presented as a space for warmth, visibility, and recognition.

“Drawing from reflections shared by students that deeply moved us, we translated these voices into color, sound, typography, motion, and light inspired by the cadences of their speech,’’ said Fischzang.

“The  exhibition recognizes multilingualism as a living archive of culture, resilience, and belonging, and as a vital force within our city and university community,’’ said Ochoa. 

At the center of the exhibition is a large-scale data visualization titled Language Moves with People, which brings the research to life.

Another featured component is La Sala, a portrait space honoring multilingual students from Lives in Translation. These included i language brokers, heritage speakes-- who speak a languages other than English at home--second-language learners, advocates, and language brokers.

Language brokering, a continuous theme in the exhibition, refers to the informal translation and interpretation of work often performed by bilingual children or family members who help relatives and community members navigate schools, transportation systems, medical settings and government services.

“It’s a role that’s not taken lightly. And often, one that you don’t sign up for. It is placed on you as a responsibility,’’ said Rodriguez.

“It comes with pressure, but it also comes with a lot of pride,” she added.  "Many of those featured throughout the exhibition reflect on how this role connects their identity to their language, to who they are.’’

Student Esperanza Onoria Santos, one of the exhibition participants, described how language brokering shapes her daily life. “I pay attention to how often I translate for people at the bus station and on the train so that stressed-out mothers can get to where they need to go with their kids,” she said.

A video layered over the portraits features an animated conversation between Onoria Santos and her family members, with typographic shifts in color, scale and motion highlighting moments of code-switching and language brokering.

A Feeling of Itself is drawn from research on multilingualism in Newark and statewide. The exhibition also aims to collect information on languages spoken in New Jersey, residents’ experiences, and their access to language services. Data is slated to be visualized in an immersive digital language map of the state.

Despite New Jersey's remarkable linguistic diversity, significant gaps remain in documented knowledge of which languages are spoken, how many are speaking them, and the status of indigenous and endangered languages.

“This absence of detailed linguistic data creates barriers to language access, effective policy planning, and the preservation of cultural identities,’’ said Rodriguez.

Lives in Translation began in 2016 by faculty members from the School of Arts and Sciences-Newark and Rutgers Law School as a community-based internship initiative at Rutgers–Newark. Its  expansion has involved advocating for language access at the state and federal levels.

Jennifer Austin, co-founder of Lives in Translation and a linguist in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, said the exhibition draws on years of collaborative research, including a multilingual survey conducted across Rutgers’ three campuses in 2020 by the Rutgers Language Engagement Project Research Advisory Council.

The survey received 11,000 responses and found that 125 languages are spoken across Rutgers, including endangered and Indigenous languages. Researchers also found that about 65 percent of Rutgers students speak a languages other than English at home, while more than half of Rutgers faculty and staff also speak another language at home.

“Rutgers is a majority multilingual university,” Austin said, “And Newark is a highly multilingual city.”

A resource wall featured at the exhibition showcases translated books and books about translation, second language acquisition, and bilingual language development, mostly written by faculty. A children's library features multilingual-themed books in eight different languages.

Rebecca Pauline Jampol, co-director of Project for Empty Space, and a Rutgers-Newark alumna, said the partnership reflects a decade of collaboration among artists, researchers, students and community members.

“This type of collaboration has enabled us to brings something into our exhibition gallery space that’s deeply important to our communities,” Jampol said.

At the exhibition opening, New Jersey State Sen. Teresa Ruiz, who represents Newark, praised the exhibition as an example of the power of partnership.

“This is what’s happening in Newark,” Ruiz said. “Democracy in action through art. Elevating voices, bringing a collective together from the heart of community, the public secto,r and our fabulous institutions.”

The A Feeling of Itself exhibition began with a window installation at Williams Street, launched in March in partnership with Teachers Village and RBH Group. The project will culminate in Illumina, a permanent site-specific lighting installation across the exterior façade on Edison Place—transforming the building into a beacon that connects language and light.

Programming for A Feeling of Itself included a presentation from Sarita Monjane Henriksen, Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Rutgers-Newark, who led a conversation on AI and human expertise in translator training, exploring the opportunities and challenges technology introduces in multilingual, resource-limited contexts.

Ross Perlin, linguist and co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, returned to Newark for a two-part workshop on language documentation, offered  practical guidance on designing language surveys and building responsible documentation workflows.

A Feeling of Itself was produced with support from Project for Empty Space, the Newark Story Bus, Talking Eyes Media, SHINE Portrait Studio at Express Newark, the Rutgers Language Engagement Project Research Advisory Council, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, the School of Arts and Sciences, the RU-N Chancellor’s Office, the Sheila Y. Oliver Center for Politics and Race in America, and NJEDA.