Today, the people who speak English as a second language, or Lingua Franca English, far outnumber native English speakers. In a scripted discussion between Nicoline van Harskamp and the fictional Romanian curator and linguist Alexandru Dima, the history and future of this parasite language was addressed.

Scheduled on the opening night of the 4th Bucharest Bienniale, the English script for the discussion was translated to and executed in Romanian. Thus, van Harskamp performed her lines phonetically in a language she did not otherwise master.

Under the title ‘Alexandru Dima and Nicoline van Harskamp on Expressive Power in Contemporary Cultural Production’, an appeal was made to emancipate English from its roots in the British and American empires, as well as from professional jargon. They celebrated the expressive abundance that Lingua Franca English offers. And they proposed that people wear their own version of English like a pair of vintage jeans.