Mother Tongue, 2013 from Chrischa Venus Oswald on Vimeo.
MOTHER TONGUE is about the special relationship between mother-daughter and about reclaiming our animal heritage. The cat is an animal connected to motherhood and women. Cats and other animals lick their kids in an act of love and as a cleaning ritual. What happens if this behaviour is transferred into the human world? Licking often has a sexual connotation in our society instead of being an act of purity. That arises the question how strongly we´re influenced by codes of conduct that determine how we read gestures. With its ambigous message the video refuses to be an economic picture and confronts the viewer with his/her own attitude and his/her view on what is normal, right or strange.