Saskia Holmkvist - Margaret (Back Translation)

This monograph centres on Saskia Holmkvist's recent film Margaret (Back Translation), which weaves together staged scenes, documentary elements and archival footage, exploring the recent history of Belfast through a series of tonally diverse passages, by turns comic, elegiac and speculative. It involves a dialogue that speaks back to the evanescent nature of a past performance, acting as a filter through which to create new memories. The book operates in a similar way by expanding the film's idiosyncratic journey beyond the screen, bringing together a constellation of perspectives - artistic, theoretical, and political - that deepen the conversation around translation, memory, and historical mediation. It includes texts by Alice Butler, Suzanna Chan, Sara Eliassen, Sue-Ann Harding, Temi Odumosu, Manuel Pelmus, Saskia Holmkvist, and Jan Verwoert, to create a rich and layered context around the original work.