ZOë CROGGON
MOTHER TONGUE
27 APRIL - 28 MAY 2022
As part of the PHOTO 2022 International Festival of Photography, we are pleased to present Zoë Croggon, Mother Tongue.
Mother Tongue examines how language sculpts experience – and how, in the absence of the word, a visual language might speak instead. Informed by the myth of Philomela, Mother Tongue asks how the body speaks when words are no longer possible. In Ovid’s myth, Philomela’s tongue is cut out after being violated by her brother-in-law, Tereus. Finding herself with a “mute mouth”, Philomela weaves a tapestry in red and white telling what has been done to her. In Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Philomela’s story is mirrored in Lavinia, whose hands are also cut off to prevent her from weaving. Lavinia instead uses her body to write on the forest floor what has been done to her. As speech fails, Mother Tongue observes the silent language of the body.
“What I hide by my language, my body utters ”
