Focal Point Gallery presents a major exhibition from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection.
This summer, Focal Point Gallery presents a major exhibition developed in collaboration with the Roberts Institute of Art. The exhibition brings together over 15 works, some of which have never been shown in a public gallery before, from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection, one of the UK’s foremost private collections. The exhibition engages with the theme of translation – through storytelling and myth, history and memory, language and materiality – and features a newly commissioned installation and performance by Haroon Mirza.
In Other Worlds: Acts of Translation considers translation as an act of movement and transformation. At a time when anything can seem open to interpretation, yet nothing appears to hold, the exhibition asks: how do we engage with multiple perspectives without collapsing into relativism? How can we communicate across distances while still recognising differences? How do we engage with others – people, histories, ideas – without assuming full knowledge or easy equivalence?
The works in this exhibition show that to translate is not only to carry something across (the root meaning of the word), but also to expose its limits, its gaps and its generative possibilities. Haroon Mirza’s sound commission explores translation through sound, rhythm, performance and communal participation. His work translates binary code into the infinite variety of the human voice, revealing how even the most structured systems remain open to interpretation. By weaving together voices from the local community, Mirza’s installation makes translation a live and participatory process, one that engages difference rather than erasing it.
Other artists including Anselm Kiefer, Michael Armitage, George Condo and Ellen Gallagher, explore how myths and stories shift with each retelling. Nika Neelova and Louise Bourgeois, consider translation as a way of engaging with history, memory and loss. Pierre Huyghe, Antoni Tàpies, Simon Fujiwara and others explore moments where gaps in understanding become spaces for invention. Artists including Romany Eveleigh and David Birkin extend this beyond words, suggesting that what remains untranslated is not necessarily lost but becomes another way of carrying experience across cultures, generations and histories.
In a time of misinformation, contested histories and unstable narratives, this exhibition reminds us that translation is never neutral. It is an active, interpretive process that shapes how we relate to the past, to others and to the world around us.
In Other Worlds: Acts of Translation: Sat 21 Jun to Sat 13 Sep 2025
Focal Point Gallery, The Forum, Elmer Square, Southend-on-Sea, SS1 1NS
Opening Hours: Wednesday to Saturday 11am to 5pm
Further Information: In Other Worlds: Acts of Translation | Focal Point Gallery