Joanna Rajkowska. The project, by her words, “It is a field of text (a fragment of The Task of the Translator) etched into marble slabs which, arranged in a spiral, delineate the centre of a square near the Serafettin Cami mosque and the former town hall. The spiral’s central part contains the Ottoman text, then the text of the German original unfolds, followed by the modern Turkish translation. The field of the Ottoman text forms a shallow basin over which water swirls, forming a small vortex in the middle. The water protects the text from profanation, because since the time of the reform Perso
Arabic script has been reserved for the Qur’an and other holy scriptures. With time, the water will wash away the letters of the Ottoman text while the remainder will be worn away by the feet of passers-by." Joanna Rajkowska