CAZ HASWELL: MOTHER TONGUE, 2020, Galerie pompom, galeriepompom.com, Sydney
Mother Tongue is an exhibition of new textile and object-based work. It makes reference to the intersection between the female body, language and sexuality and the interpretation of personal history. In this work I explore slang, idioms and euphemisms for female identity that can arise within an informal collective, examining language that can be at once intimate and fierce or savage.
It takes as its starting point an extended quote by John Berger:
“A spoken language is a body, a living creature, whose physiognomy is verbal and whose visceral functions are linguistic. And this creature’s home is the inarticulate as well as the articulate. Consider the term Mother Tongue. In Russian the term is Rodnoi-yazyk, which means Nearest or Dearest Tongue. At a pinch one could call it Darling Tongue. Mother Tongue is our first language, first heard as infants from the mouths of our mothers. Hence the logic of the term. I mention it now because the creature of language, which I’m trying to describe, is undoubtedly feminine. Within one Mother Tongue are all Mother Tongues. Or, to put it another way: every Mother Tongue is universal.” 2016
The works include lists of words stitched on flannelette sheet and faux fleece; a meat tray and lamb chop hand-built from clay; words stitched into an apron; lists on paper, a photograph, cast objects from resin. These works operate on a number of levels, collectively exploring the relationship between language and the body.
Included in this context of language is a direct reference also to my own mother and certain lists that she wrote, covertly inferring the influence our mothers can have on the formation of language, thought and identity.
- Caz Haswell 2020