- Artist
- Zineb Sedira born 1963
- Medium
- Video, 3 monitors, colour and sound (stereo)
- Dimensions
- Duration: 5min
overall display dimensions variable - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 2007
- Reference
- T12315
Display caption
In Mother Tongue the artist, her mother and her daughter try to exchange childhood memories in their native languages: French, Arabic and English. Sedira was born in Paris to Algerian parents, and moved to London to study art, where her daughter was born. The work reflects on storytelling as a way to preserve cultural identity across generations. It underscores the difficulty of maintaining a shared heritage across national and linguistic divides and acknowledges the complexity of identity.
Gallery label, May 2019
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Film and audio
Explore
- emotions, concepts and ideas(16,416)
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- emotions and human qualities(5,345)
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- memory(367)
- formal qualities(12,454)
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- photographic(4,673)
- actions: expressive(2,622)
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- talking(602)
- woman(9,110)
- head / face(2,497)
- Arabic(21)
- family(602)
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- daughter(718)
- grandmother(101)
- mother(1,382)
- cultural identity(7,943)
- Algerian(7)
- migration(20)
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