RANTAU
A Transmedial Translation of Poetry into Pottery
Rantau is a collaborative exhibition by Ukrainian translator and ceramicist Veronika Yadukha and South African poet Lethokuhle Msimang.
This exhibition explores displacement, memory, and cultural liminality through a transmedial translation—where poetry is transformed into pottery, and language takes on a tactile form. At its core is a poem To Hug a Maple Tree, displayed in Zee, a font by Tendai Msimang, alongside a “reimagined Rosetta Stone” that invites audiences to engage with linguistic reconstruction and cultural erasure.
Through this fusion of ceramics and poetry, Rantau probes questions of colonial legacies, fractured homes, and repatriation, offering an immersive exhibition on loss, resilience, and belonging.
Design: Tendai Msimang
Rantau draws its name from the Malaysian word that encapsulates the experience of being “in-between” or “wandering away from home.” The title serves as a conceptual anchor, encapsulating shared yet distinct experiences of displacement, isolation, and the search for belonging.
The project sows together poetry and pottery that explore the often hidden dimensions of pain and isolation experienced by those living in-between spaces. Lethokuhle’s poetry reflects the fragility of the black body and its unregistered precarity, while Veronika’s pots demonstrate a tactile embodiment of these concepts. The poems are not mere accompaniments but integral elements that guide the interpretation of the ceramic pieces, creating a dialogic relationship between word and form.
The folds of the pot emerge organically, marking the places where the clay’s structure is weakest. Instead of imposing a flawless form, she embraces these imperfections, allowing the clay’s “traumatic folds” to dictate the final shape.
This process mirrors the way repeated experiences leave visible traces on the human body. Like the human form, these vases become vessels of memory and trauma, their surfaces bearing witness to the histories they contain.
Central to the project is the use of the Zee font, a typographical creation by Tendai Msimang, that reimagines language as visual art. This font is utilized in the display of the poem To Hug a Maple Tree, a piece that metaphorically examines the fear of returning home and the act of seeking connection and grounding in an unfamiliar land. The poem, when read in the Zee font, challenges the reader to engage with the text on a deeper level, mirroring the artists’ own struggles to articulate their experiences in unfamiliar cultural and linguistic landscapes.
Conceptually, this project reflects on the absence of written records in specific languages, such as Zulu (the poets native tongue), and the creative possibilities this absence affords. Zee becomes a symbolic representation of a mysterious and unknowable past – it speaks to the illegibility of histories erased through conquest and colonization.
The Zee font additionally explores themes of language, memory, and cultural erasure. The poem To Hug A Maple Tree is being rendered in Zee and printed on cloth, serving as a central piece in the exhibition.
The project was supported by Digital Humanities and Social Engagement Cluster, Digital Ethnic Futures Lab, Department of Film and Media Studies at Dartmouth College, AVA Gallery and Art Center