Zineb Sedira embodies the role of interpreter through her visual artwork ‘Mother Tongue’ (2002). On a blank wall, three screens, each connected to headphones unravel intimate conversations about three generations of women. The audience is invited on a multi-generational journey from Algiers to London. Sedira features three dialogues involving her mother, her daughter and herself, each of whom respectively speak in their mother tongue -Darija, French and English. Through this collage of childhood memories an intimate, intergenerational conversation evolves about the value of language. Flaunting the history of migration and highlighting the diasporic identity through notions of displacement, each screen, captures the story of a family which transcends language and physical borders.
The grandmother and Darija represent the start of the journey from Algiers to London. Zineb, born in France, uses French to interact with her mother and daughter, depicting fragments of her multifaceted identity as a second generation resident. The (grand)-daughter speaking English is by no means a symbol of the end journey, as the displacement pattern of previous generations is repeated once more. She communicates in an alien language to her grandmother. Long silences, gentle smiles and hand movements create a new mode of transmission, a new way to connect with relatives she cannot verbally understand. The piece is striking in its treatment of language as a carrier of culture and the sense of belonging. It leaves us wondering if we belong to geographical spaces or linguistic spheres, as language and borders continually clash.