milk teeth, mother tongue

An extract from the publication in the perpetual back and forth an accompaniment to Maria Amidu’s solo exhibition at Towner Eastbourne (4 May to 8 September 2024).

Introduction

While in the process of making my commission for Future Collect, I produced milk teeth, mother tongue. It was written between June and November 2023 and like 26,778,780 minutes the piece blurs time. Past and present moments coalesce, reimagined pasts and imagined futures intercede.

I am drawn to what is not on public display, the interiority of things. I am also drawn to the language of memory and the way it can dictate how a life is treasured or discarded. Since 1973, I have been in a continuous state of remembering and retrieval - attempting to piece scattered versions of myself back together. In this perpetual back and forth I have superimposed a present self onto a past self, creating an intangible palimpsest. Outline upon blurred outline. These outlines become words I wrestle into sentences in the form of freewriting. Sometimes thoughts tumble out of me and I commit them to paper at a pace, other times one scribbled line sits waiting.

I have noticed that my writing is never content to sit quietly on the page though, the words insist on occupying space, insist on speaking up. I suspect milk teeth, mother tongue will be no different. For now, these conjurings only exist here but in time they will expect something of me. In the same way a freewriting piece from January 2022 called fork kept gently prodding and became 26,778,780 minutes.

Copyright © Maria Amidu, 2024