2021
Pigment print on acid free cotton paper in frame
Diptych 140 x 185 cm each
Edition 5 + 2 AP
The Norwegian Language in the Dictionary
2025
Pigment print on acid free cotton paper in frame
Diptych 152 x 200 cm each
Edition 5 + 2 AP
The English Language in the Dictionary (wallpaper version)
2021
Wall paper
Variable dimensions
A dictionary uses words to define the meaning of words. Though in some cases, illustrations or images supplement the description of a word’s meaning. The deployment of images might reveal how some words are unable to transmit their meaning through words alone. Or, how some words lend themselves to images better than others. Or conversely, how some words have no use for images. Or maybe, in a combination of pragmatism and possibility, images in a dictionary are there to mark a thing in the world one might experience first-hand—given the right circumstances. For example: harpoon, alluvial fan, DNA. Or, it is possible the reason has nothing to do with words at all and only concerns images for their ability to describe something beyond language. In other words, the image might exist merely to exploit the word.
In an ongoing series of works, Lisa Tan takes various language dictionaries and gathers all of the words with definitions supplemented by an illustration or image. She has created a wallpaper comprised of images from the English language dictionary (Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition), and two framed prints made from the Basque language dictionary (Adorez Eskola Hitzegia, 15th Edition). Amassed as a whole, the pieces transform the empirical into the poetic and the poetic into the political. They reflect a language culture’s particular concerns and values—including how it regards the function and ownership of knowledge. Is a lexicon a thing of universal objectivity or a specific claim to collective political subjectivity? Either case might have much to say about any given language culture’s history and will towards expression.
Basque dictionary illustration credits
General didactic images:
Begoña Medel
Artistic images:
Juan Mari Arrizabalaga
Exhibition History
Pa, Galleri Riis, Oslo, 2025herein between spaces, Marabouparken konsthall, Stockholm, 2023
Komunikazioa (in)komunikazioa, Tabakalera, Donostia/San Sebastian, 2021