Following the workshop ‘Black Music, Repetition and the Ecstatic’ at DIY Space for London in October 2019, mother tongues is excited to present ‘Forging Gestures?’ at Leeds Arts University, Blenheim Walk Gallery on the 14th of December 2019.

The second part of Tiered Tongues deliberately coincides and partners with the exhibition ‘Samra Mayanja: Scripted for a Wayward Narrator‘ at Leeds Arts University, Blenheim Walk Gallery. By facilitating a worksop using movement and discussion, Samra Mayanja will explore how the individual or collective loss of a language can be seen as equivocal to burning down a library, signifying the loss of an accent, idioms, proverbs, different modes of thought and expression. This workshops aims to collectively examine the contest between assimilation into the dominant culture, imitation of desired culture and the authentic self entering language (spoken and gestural/movement).

We will use our bodies to investigate ways that we assimilate, imitate and get closer to ourselves in our lives. We invite you to bring images/videos/objects/memories that you feel are relevant.

Please wear clothes that you are happy to move in.

***As this workshops asks you to use your body, we aim to facilitate a safe environment where each person decides their level of participation.

***We are an inclusive space, so anybody who jeopardises the mental and physical space of marginal people will not be tolerated.

***We aim to make this space as accessible as possible to everyone! Please contact Marina at mothertonguescollective@gmail.com if you are differently abled/qtipoc+ and have any concerns about attending. This includes (but is not limited to) transport to and from the venue.

TIERED TONGUE is a tryptic process inviting collective reflection, breaking and remaking of the knowledge produced in SAMRA MAYANJA’S performance BAD UGANDAN.

It takes its impetus from Samra’s eponymous poem written in 2015, exploring the relationship between the first languages spoken by her mother and herself (Lusoga and English respective), the recent historic power dynamic between the two languages and how this manifests in their relationship.

This process takes the form of two workshops, “Black Music, Repetition and the Ecstatic” at DIY Space For London on the 13th of October and “Forging Gestures?” at The Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds on the 14th of December and a final performance in February 2020.

Samra Mayanja is a Leeds based artist whose work spans video, performance and non-hierarchical collective learning. Her work explores national and global hierarchies concerning language and the performance of speech.

mother tongues is an interdisciplinary and research-led collective applying decolonial, feminist and queer theory in exploring language and identity.

Leeds Arts University has a large exhibitions programme of around twenty shows a year held in our two main buildings.This Blenheim Walk Gallery is situated just off the reception at our Blenheim Walk site.