You may be wondering why there is an “o” at the end of contexto. In Spanish, contexto means context. Many words in Spanish are similar to English words. I am bilingual but over the years my Spanish has deteriorated significantly and I am not the only one with this problem. Immigrants are often ridiculed or punished for speaking their native language and their children end up forgetting their family’s culture.

Out of Contexto was made to build empathy and inspire people to engage with foreign languages through the use of idioms. Every language has their own unique idioms that do not have an English equivalent. By placing the literal English translations out of context of their real meaning, I challenge people to think about these random phrases and encourage them to find the answer on their own by interacting with the installation and listening to the recordings of bilingual people repeating the phrases.