event
Thursday 1 January 1970

Mother Tongue

Thursday 13 June, 18.00
MAXXI B.A.S.E. Graziella Lonardi Buontempo Hall – admittance free

Mother Tongue is the project conceived by the artists Sara Basta and Mariana Ferratto and curated by Emanuela Termine that won the competition “Art, Heritage and Human Rights”, promoted by Connecting Cultures together with the Fondazione ISMU – Patrimonio Intercultura, with the support of the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.

Mother Tongue was born out of reflection on language as the first element of tangible difference between cultures, as the first vehicle for the identification of reality and for the construction of one’s identity. Conceived for the Bangladeshi community in Rome in order to plot a sequence of artistic-linguistic exchanges between Italian and Bangladeshi children and between Bangladeshi and Italian children and mothers, the project has since been transformed and adapted to the reality of the school and to the diverse national origins of the children (Tunisian, Venezuelan, Romanian, Chinese and Albanian as well as Bangladeshi).

The artists have considered the children as the primary mediators for the women and the families in Italy in terms of learning the new language. The project is intended to assist the natural learning of language among children and the potential passage from them to the women. Moreover, it focuses on the mother-child relationship as the principal vehicle for the construction of a common identity.

The material produced during the project will be presented on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 June in the gallery The Gallery Apart – Via Francesco Negri 43, Rome.

A project promoted by the “Dino Penazzato’ civic library of Rome, in collaboration with the “Carlo Pisacane’ Elementary School in Rome, the Bangladeshi embassy in Italy and Sala 1 International Centre for Contemporary Art.