LOST IN TRANSLATION. DESENHO. 13 ANOS. 13 ARTISTAS. [2025]

GALERIA BELO-GALSTERER [Lisbon, Portugal]
Co-curated by Alda Galsterer and Alexia Alexandropolou 
Cristina Ataíde | Cecília Costa | Claudia Fischer | Daniela Krtsch | Mónica Miranda | Jorge Molder | Inês Moura | Mané Pacheco | Joana Rebelo de Andrade | Maria Sassetti | Gwendolyn van der Velden | Ana Velez | Wolfgang Wirth

^{Photos © Euardo Sousa Ribeiro and Ana Garrido} 



Lost in Translation marks the thirteenth anniversary of Galeria Belo-Galsterer through a collective exhibition that brings together thirteen artists: Cristina Ataíde, Cecília Costa, Claudia Fischer, Daniela Krtsch, Mónica Miranda, Jorge Molder, Inês Moura, Mané Pacheco, Joana Rebelo de Andrade, Maria Sassetti, Gwendolyn van der Velden, Ana Velez, and Wolfgang Wirth.

The title Lost in Translation evokes the distance that comes when something said, seen, or felt moves from one form of expression to another. To translate is to carry meaning across borders, but also to let it slip, fail, and expand. As Walter Benjamin wrote in The Task of the Translator [1], translation is not a mere copy of the original but a continuation, a living act that reveals the afterlife of language. George Steiner would echo this statement years later in After Babel [2], proposing that all communication is translation... every conversation is an exchange of territories across the frontier.

In this regard, the exhibition reads as a meditation on what is lost and found through the act of translating. Using various media, drawing, sculpture, and photography, the works touch upon areas where meaning is slippery, where what is said and what is seen do not necessarily align. These gaps are not failures of communication but occasions for different perspectives and new interpretations. Thus, the phenomenon of being “lost in translation” points to something beyond miscommunication; it addresses the vulnerability of human connection. The impulse toward, and barriers against, understanding. According to Homi Bhabha, as described in The Location of Culture [1994] [3], meaning is frequently made “in-between”, in a space where difference is not erased but negotiated. Sofia Coppola’s 2003 film [4] of the same name similarly conveys the quiet intimacy that can develop between strangers who understand each other through this sense of displacement, an emotional terrain in which even misunderstanding becomes a kind of acknowledgment.

In the celebration of thirteen years of Galeria Belo-Galsterer, Lost in Translation becomes an act of suspension. Between languages, materials, and gazes, translation is revealed not as loss, but as movement where meaning continues to evolve, even when words fall apart.

Alexia Alexandropolou



[1] Walter Benjamin: The Task of the Translator. 1923.
[2] George Steiner: After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation.
[3] Oxford University Press, 1975. Homi K . Bhabha: The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
[4] Sofia Coppola: Lost in Translation. Film. Focus Features, 2003.