mother tongue / Anyanyelv, 2003
Material: Single-channel video
Duration: 00:42, excerpted from The Trouble with Translation (2003)
Exhibitions: Jst wrds, Cambridge Galleries, 2013
Mother Tongue, Varley Art Gallery, 2017
Material: Single-channel video
Duration: 00:42, excerpted from The Trouble with Translation (2003)
Exhibitions: Jst wrds, Cambridge Galleries, 2013
Mother Tongue, Varley Art Gallery, 2017
“I have no Mother Tongue”
A sequence of white words flashes on a black screen: “What language do you think in? What language do you dream in? What language do you swear in? They say that people always count in their mother tongue. That’s how they can discover spies. They forget and they count in their mother tongue. Anyway that’s what I was told.” Partly humorous and lighthearted, Singer’s video draws the viewer's attention to the contradictory and at times conflicting nature of language.
Family archives and personal experiences of dislocation and immigration are the source material for many of Singer’s works. She is particularly interested in how family relations and cultural assumptions construct subjectivity. For example, the script for this video is partly inspired by stories she heard from her father, whose own experience of fighting in the underground resistance during the Second World War, informed his later interest in war and espionage stories. Singer was only 3 years old when her family escaped Hungary during the war, immigrating to Canada after seeking refuge first in Germany, then in The Netherlands.
Singer’s piece also considers the moment when one becomes fluent in a language other than your own, as well as the alienation that results from this transition. Singer explains “As an immigrant child from Hungary, I remember learning English but don’t remember speaking Hungarian. My parents wanted their children to forget their heritage as Hungarian and as Jews to become ‘Canadian’.” In Singer’s case, her family’s experience of war created a heightened sensitivity to change and the precariousness and instability that resulted from this traumatic experience created an urgency around fitting in. Singer, however, has remained intrigued by her former linguistic identity. If she were in the spy’s situation, would her ability to speak Hungarian come rushing back or is it too far buried within her subconscious to ever resurface?
- Anik Glaude, Curator
A sequence of white words flashes on a black screen: “What language do you think in? What language do you dream in? What language do you swear in? They say that people always count in their mother tongue. That’s how they can discover spies. They forget and they count in their mother tongue. Anyway that’s what I was told.” Partly humorous and lighthearted, Singer’s video draws the viewer's attention to the contradictory and at times conflicting nature of language.
Family archives and personal experiences of dislocation and immigration are the source material for many of Singer’s works. She is particularly interested in how family relations and cultural assumptions construct subjectivity. For example, the script for this video is partly inspired by stories she heard from her father, whose own experience of fighting in the underground resistance during the Second World War, informed his later interest in war and espionage stories. Singer was only 3 years old when her family escaped Hungary during the war, immigrating to Canada after seeking refuge first in Germany, then in The Netherlands.
Singer’s piece also considers the moment when one becomes fluent in a language other than your own, as well as the alienation that results from this transition. Singer explains “As an immigrant child from Hungary, I remember learning English but don’t remember speaking Hungarian. My parents wanted their children to forget their heritage as Hungarian and as Jews to become ‘Canadian’.” In Singer’s case, her family’s experience of war created a heightened sensitivity to change and the precariousness and instability that resulted from this traumatic experience created an urgency around fitting in. Singer, however, has remained intrigued by her former linguistic identity. If she were in the spy’s situation, would her ability to speak Hungarian come rushing back or is it too far buried within her subconscious to ever resurface?
- Anik Glaude, Curator
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