Translating for contemporary museums: new media, new challenges.

Join us at The Burrell Collection, in the beautiful Pollock Park, Glasgow, for this full-day workshop exploring various aspects of translation and multilingual project management for museums, organised by the ITI Media, Arts and Tourism Network.

This in-person event will take place in the Boardroom of the Burrell Collection on Saturday 27th September 2025.

Tickets cost £80 for MAT Network members, £90 for other ITI members, and £100 for non-ITI attendees. Please note that payment is to be made directly to the MAT Network bank account (details will be supplied on registration).

Tea/coffee and a buffet lunch are included in the ticket price.

After the workshop, there will be an optional dinner in Glasgow city centre (pay as you go).

We are also delighted to be able to offer a free complementary event on Sunday 28th September: an architectural walking tour of Glasgow, with Sara Robertson (time to be confirmed, but please indicate your interest when reserving a place).

Our three sessions are detailed below, and there will be plenty of time for questions, discussion, networking and visiting the museum.

Session 1: Mark Bradshaw / Elena Zini, Screen Language Ltd

Bringing the Burrell’s Collections to the World: A Case Study in Museum-specific Multilingual and Multimodal Project Management

The refurbishment of the Burrell Museum provided the impetus for a wholesale adoption of multilingual accessibility for its collections, running the gamut from subtitles, voiceover, BSL overlays and text translations for new audio-visual components and digitised museum labels. As the successful bidders in that public tender, we at Screen Language had to make that happen, on time and within budget. This presentation will provide both a general overview and a deep dive into some of the nitty-gritties of that process, from dealing with an ever-changing and expanding brief to wrangling a cohort of freelancers and linguists across 11 languages. By discussing these universal challenges within this specific context, we hope to provide insight into both the possibilities and potential pitfalls of future large-scale linguistic accessibility projects in museums, as well as a reflection on the current state of our industry.

Session 2: Alicja Tokarska, Polish translator and subtitler

Museum translation today

Translating for museums in 2025 poses a range of challenges. Like other cultural institutions, museums are constantly striving to address and engage with the concerns and demands of their diverse range of visitors. Today a trip to a museum is likely to involve collections displayed according to innovative curatorial practices, spaces aimed at children and people with a range of needs, as well as variety of media including multilingual screens and audio guides.

Having worked on a series of culture and heritage projects, for both agencies and direct clients, my presentation will explore three key perspectives on translating for museums and art institutions: common types of clients and projects, and how to find them; the challenges translators face, and especially the issues of inclusivity, diversity, and decolonisation; and, finally, valuable skills and services translators can offer beyond textual translation. In each case I will discuss key skills translators need to hone to stay relevant in the contemporary museums sector.

Session 3: Louise Rogers Lalaurie, French to English translator

Translating across (museum) cultures: Snapshots from 20+ years of translations for French institutions

Just over 20 years ago, I joined MAT and the team of freelancers hired to translate the Louvre's first-ever Web site and online catalogue of works. Drawing on my academic background in art history, I've since translated gallery panels, exhibition catalogues, press releases, sponsorship materials, Web sites, apps, interactive online modules and more, for cultural institutions across France, including the Louvre, Centre Pompidou, Musée Marmottan Monet, Jeu de Paume, Musée d'Orsay and Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, the Musée d'art contemporain in Lyon, and MUCEM in Marseille. While supports are ever-evolving, one aspect of the translation process remains constant: the need to negotiate often striking differences between the source culture (curators, academics, communications staff at - mostly State-run - French museums) and the target audience (British, American and other, or non-native, English-speaking art lovers, museum-goers, tourists...). Examples from across my two decades as a museum-sector translator will illustrate this recurring issue, the tactics, work-arounds and compromises I've applied to resolve it, and their varying degrees of success...