Since it’s initial presentation in fall 2019, Mamanaw Pekiskwewina | Mother Tongues has beed adapted into a framework for community responsive public programming for the tour of Taskoch pipon kona kah nipa muskoseya, nepin pesim eti pimachihew | Like the winter snow kills the grass, the summer sun revives it across so-called Canada starting in spring 2021.
What does it mean when your mother tongue [1] is not the language of your mothers and grandmothers? What does it mean to speak in a language that is not your own, that is not the language that has been passed down and flows through you, sustaining you?
Embedded within languages are entire worlds; language reveals how we know what we know and teaches us how to relate to one another and the land. Being raised with a foster language, a language forced onto us by colonizers, affects all aspects of a life and the lives of those that come after. We take root and are nourished within and by our language as it moves through our bodies and guides us. But what happens when the words that guide you are not the same words that guided your ancestors, but are words instead tainted by imperialism and colonialism?
Mamanaw Pekiskwewina | Mother Tongues was first conceived as an offsite exhibition at the Calgary Central Library from October-December 2019. It was presented in concert with Taskoch pipon kona kah nipa muskoseya, nepin pesim eti pimachihew | Like the winter snow kills the grass, the summer sun revives it (shortened to pipon kona, nepin pesim), an exhibition at TRUCK Contemporary Art in November/December 2019. The original iteration of Mamanaw Pekiskwewina brought together emerging artists from the four Indigenous language groups of the Treaty 7 region—Nakoda, nēhiyawēwin, Nitsiipowahsiin, and Tsuut’ina—who incorporate their ancestral languages into their practice. The exhibition gave space back to the First Nation communities of the area, while asserting that the Indigenous lands that we occupy carry specific language traditions that root us to this land and still flow through us.
For the tour of pipon kona, nepin pesim across so-called Canada, the relationship between the exhibitions had to be reimagined; rather than a specific offsite exhibition, Mamanaw Pekiskwewina has been adapted to act as a framework of engagement for right relations to the localities of each of the tour locations. Each of the host organizations will utilize the Mamanaw Pekiskwewina framework—aided by an Indigenous Assistant Curator who has ties to the region—to develop programming that engages with the local Indigenous community and their language revitalization efforts. The definition of ‘local’ for this project has moved away from civic borders and the colonial understanding to one that is more region based and defined in consultation with the Indigenous people that currently and historically reside on the land the host organizations occupy.
One of the main intentions of the Mamanaw Pekiskwewina is for the host organization to engage with the local Indigenous community and be responsive to their needs when it comes to supporting language revitalization efforts through art. The hope is that this engagement will spark long-term institutional change with the host organization by supporting Indigenous cultural workers and artists as well as building a dialogical, reciprocal, and sustainable relationship with the Indigenous community at-large while taking into account the specificity of the language traditions of the land.
NOTE
[1] The most common usage of the terms ‘mother tongue’ and ‘first language’ refer to the language that a person first learns during childhood and still speaks at home. However, many Indigenous groups around the world use the term ‘mother tongue’ to refer to the language of their mothers and/or ancestral language. This text observes the latter usage in reference to the phrase ‘mother tongue’.