Mother Tongue asks: “What does it mean to speak the language of power?” In this moment, more than ever, words matter. Words seduce. Words distort. Words unite. Words intoxicate. Power knows this well, with language as its chosen lover. Friday Gallery’s fall season brings together diaspora and indigenous artists exploring the language and symbols of power, from the literal to the metaphoric and mythic. Mother Tongue presents works by Caroline Monnet, Raymundo T. Reynoso, Cryptik, Salomón Huerta, and Behnaz Farahi. Weaving perspectives from Anishinaabe, Mexican, South Korean, and Iranian heritages, the pieces tell a larger story of how language and power have always danced together across time, culture, and community. The show will be paired with a living library: 100 Books of Resistance chosen by 100 cultural thinkers and curated by linguist scholar Eva Barbarossa. The Mother Tongue library and popup bookstore will bring together diverse views on power and language: from the conversations of plants, to the secret lexicon of an extinct female-only language. It will span cultures, eras, and genres: from protest poetry to con artists, from political philosophy to comic books. Your mother tongue is the first language you learned to speak. By understanding the language of power and making it our native tongue, we can hold it, bend it, and channel it as our own. Mother Tongue is a love letter to the thinkers, writers, and artists who’ve given us the language of courage when we needed it most.
