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Mithu Sen: mOTHERTONGUE | Exhibition Kit

Mithu Sen, MOU (Museum of unbelongings) 2023, installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2023. Courtesy the artist, supported by Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. Photograph: Andrew Curtis
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Mithu Sen: mOTHERTONGUE is part of ACCA’s series of annual solo exhibitions by significant artists on the international stage. This exhibition features new and existing work by New Delhi-based artist Mithu Sen (born in West Bengal, 1971). 

Mithu Sen is a contemporary artist working in India who explores the complexities of identity and society through her work. Her art often incorporates language and performance to challenge how we communicate and interact with each other. In her latest exhibition, mOTHERTONGUE at ACCA, Sen presents a survey of her art practice over the past 20 years, including new installations.

The exhibition is presented as a mind-map or cartography** of Sen’s practice and thought process. Through conceptual practice including drawings, sculptures, media and performance, Sen creates complex and layered pieces that elude simple categorisation. She challenges the institutional power structures related to race, gender, ethnicity, and location by constructing contact zones, dialogues, and contractual agreements between herself, the arts industry, and the audience. 

The concept of (m)othertongue in the exhibition title refers to the relationship between language and the physical tongue, while speaking of the colonisation and hierarchy of one language over another. The exhibition unpacks the importance of bodily experiences over abstract ideas and links this to the structural biases and exclusions embedded in everyday communication. 

Sen is known for her provocative and playful examination of social structures and her commitment to perpetual unbecoming through performative interventions, intricate drawings, symbolic and linguistic stories. She encourages the audience to decipher and interpret the meaning of her art and connect it with their own lives.

Mithu Sen: mOTHERTONGUE is a thought-provoking exploration of how language, identity, and society intersect in our lives. It presents a unique opportunity to engage with contemporary art and develop a deeper understanding of the complex, marginalised and invisible aspects of our world.

Curated by Max Delany

*Mothertongue: A person’s first or native language. A mothertongue is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth.

**Cartography: the science or practice of making maps.

  1. Introduction
  2. About the Artist
  3. Key artworks
    1. Mithu Sen, How to be a SUCKcessful artist, 2019
    2. Mithu Sen, MoU: Museum of unbelongings 2023
    3. Mithu Sen, mOTHER I SPELL YOU WRONG 2023
  4. Support Material
  5. For Teachers

How to use this Kit

This exhibition kit has been written by ACCA Education to support learning alongside the ACCA exhibition Mithu Sen: mOTHERTONGUE. Three key artworks from the exhibition have been highlighted, with discussion questions to prompt students’ thinking. Primary and secondary activities are mapped to the Victorian and Australian Curricula and can be found in the For Teachers section. 

About the artist

Mithu Sen
Born 1971, West Bengal, India
Lives and works in New Delhi

Mithu Sen lives and works in New Delhi. She grew up in a Bengali family steeped in culture; her mother is a poet and Sen originally considered poetry her mother tongue. Sen studied at Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal, where she gained her BFA and MFA in Painting from 1990 to 1997. She subsequently participated in the post-graduate program at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland in 2001. In 1997 Sen relocated to New Delhi, an event she credits as a defining moment in her artistic trajectory. Sen was impacted by her experience as a migrant in the nation’s capital, home to diverse cultures, populations, experiencing the cross-cultural potential and hierarchies of a cosmopolitan city and influences of an anglicised* art world.

One of India’s most renowned contemporary artists, Mithu Sen has exhibited and performed in major international forums. This is her first major retrospective in Australia.

* Anglicised: a form of cultural assimilation whereby something becomes assimilated into, influenced by or dominated by Englishness.

Photo of the artist, Mithu Sen in the exhibition, 'mOTHERTONGUE' at ACCA. Photo: Casey Horsfield.

Key Artworks

Mithu Sen, How to be a SUCKcessful artist 2019, video, single channel, 1:12 mins. Courtesy the artist 

Mithu Sen, How to be a SUCKcessful artist 2019

video
single channel, 1:12 mins

Key ideas and concepts: Video art, satire, anti-capatilism  

How to be a SUCKcessful artist 2019 is a short, satirical video performance that uses language, performance, identity, humour and cultural economies to create a critical commentary on the academic contexts of the art world and market.

Sen’s video playfully exaggerates the dominant cultural trends of the anglophone art world. Through her nonsensical language and gibberish utterances, she shows how an artist might gain social, symbolic and economic capital within the academic context of the art world. The video also complicates myths and assumptions about Sen’s identity as a woman artist from the global south* who is navigating feminist and post-colonial discourses within the art market.

In the video, Sen parodies the format of instructional YouTube videos. She speaks in a made-up language that sounds confident and authoritative, while text scrolls across the screen with humorous advice for artists. The advice starts out sounding reasonable but progressively becomes more ridiculous and reflexive with comments such as “Polish your #Yoga and Sexy native accent” and “Make proposals in COMIC SANS”. 

Throughout the video, Sen intentionally performs illegibility and indecipherable communication. She critiques the curatorial practices that often misrepresent and simplify the work of women artists from the global south*.

Inquiry question

  • What is the purpose of satire, humour or irreverence in this work?
  • In what way is this type of video artwork unique?
  • How does the context in which this work is presented change its message? Consider presentation in India compared to Australia, and specifics of audiences.

*Global south: A term usually used to refer to countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Most of the world’s population resides in the global south though it typically refers to low-income and politically and culturally marginalised regions.

Mithu Sen, MOU (Museum of unbelongings) 2023, detail, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2023. Courtesy the artist, supported by Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Mithu Sen, MoU: Museum of unbelongings 2023

various personal (sculpted, morphed, and found) objects (abandoned, impermanent, and unusual belongings), memories, stories, and archives; motor-driven rotating steel table with acrylic vitrine
166 x 400 (diameter) cm

ACCA acknowledges the support of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, towards the production of this installation

Key ideas and concepts: Collections, artefact, history, museology

Mithu Sen is an avid collector of objects and memories which are choreographed in the creation of imagined and speculative worlds. MoU: Museum of unbelongings 2023 is a new version of a series that showcases sculptural and found objects presented in a museum-like display cabinet. Described as unbelongings, these objects include valuable artefacts, pop cultural curiosities, and overlooked or abandoned trinkets and detritus. Sen’s Museum of Unbelongings 2023 is presented in a large circular museum vitrine that rotates like a carousel, inspired by museological* conventions and the dreamy and whimsical atmosphere of the fairground. This presentation adds a renewed cultural significance to the seemingly eclectic cabinet of curiosities.

Sen’s display of collected and continuously circulated disparate contents is showcased as enchanted mnemonic** objects or relics that represent memories and diverse social narratives, values, and customs. Some of these objects have been with the artist for years; they signify life cycles of acquisition and consumption, treasure and waste, rejection and migration, as much as they reflect the artist’s personal world. Contrary to the rigid, grid-like systems of classification associated with art museums and the values of the art market, Sen’s personal worldview configures the Museum of Unbelongings according to an eccentric, poetic and personal style. This process is artistic and sacred, encouraging a politics of empathy and introspection. The Museum of Unbelongings creates an immersive experience with uncanny objects that invites viewers to use their imagination and invest psychologically, making them accomplices in the creation of meaning.

Inquiry question

  • Where would you normally see an object like this?
  • How does the contextualisation of these objects in MoU change their original message or purpose?
  • The artist has collected many of these objects and the cabinet is produced by a company specialising in sculpture fabrication. Do you consider this to still be an artwork made by the artist? Why or why not?

*Museological: the systematic study of the organisation, management, and function of a museum
**Mnemonic: aided or designed to aid the memory

Mithu Sen, mOTHER I SPELL YOU WRONG 2023, installation view, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, 2023. Courtesy the artist. Photograph: Andrew Curtis

Mithu Sen, mOTHER I SPELL YOU WRONG 2023

ink, watercolour and collage on paper
31 framed drawings: 71.12 x 50.8 cm (each)

Key ideas and concepts: Language, text, colonisation

The artwork mOTHER I SPELL YOU WRONG 2023 offers a new way to explore language and visual art, comprising thirty-one pieces including text and image. In the texts Sen plays with words such as the expression ‘eye for an eye’ to share her way of seeing while creating ambiguity and confusion in the viewer. Sen’s use of red and black ink on paper creates a physical and sensory experience that disrupts traditional forms of communication. The texts often use a first-person voice that allows the artist to express herself without being tied to any specific identity. Sen’s outsider status and “lingual anarchy*” offer fresh perspectives that challenge the dominance of the English language.

This work reflects the artist’s complicated relationship with the ‘other tongue’, the English language. It is a shared language of many colonised people who are forced to use the “English medium” to communicate and as a marker of social status and mobility.

Through her use of language, Sen aims to explore and celebrate identities and cultures that are often marginalised. Sen seeks to disrupt the norms of language and communication, using nonsensical utterances to challenge the status quo. The exhibition invites viewers to explore the complexities of language and identity, offering a space for new ideas and perspectives.

Language, when compromised, and speech when parodied carry the threat of the Other. As an insurgent** subject who histrionically discharges nonsense through non-language, my intention is to conjure these othered identities too: whether as other genders, as other ethnicity and cultures, as others within ‘one language’. Mithu Sen, 2023

Inquiry questions

  • What techniques has the artist used that aren’t typically considered artistic?
  • Looking at this artwork, how do you think the artist feels about the English language? What is your own relationship with English as a language?
  • How do you think you would experience this work if you were unable to read the words?

*Anarchy: a state of disorder due to absence or non-recognition of authority or other controlling systems.
**Insurgent: a person fighting against a government or invading force; a rebel or revolutionary.

For Teachers

Primary activities

Mapping Identities on Paper

This activity is inspired by Mithu Sen’s small drawings and collages Until you 206 2021-22(see above image carousel) featuring pierced paper, causing impressions or raised braille-like markings. Students will use pin pricks and watercolour to create their own artwork exploring identity. The artwork should include a symbol or idea represent themselves, imagining how to describe themselves without words. Examples include a landscape, map, feeling or shapes.

Step one: Prepare A5 watercolour paper by taping or pinning it face down onto a foam backing board. Using a grey lead pencil to mark out the symbol or design onto the paper.

Step two: Use a thumb tack or etching tool to create a series of indents or holes along the drawn line into the paper. This will mark the outline of the drawing with a fine lace-like form. 

Step three: Remove the paper from the foam backing board and flip over to the other side.  Add watercolour using a small selection of colours which reflect something personal about the viewer. Mithu Sen likes to use the colour pink in her work to reclaim a much loved colour she was not allowed to wear as a child.

Extension:

In groups of 5, assemble drawings, using coloured electrical tape and text to create a mind-map. Lay out drawings to demonstrate commonalities or differences. This can be done on the table, floor or a wall. 

This gives the students the opportunity to reflect and draw connections between the symbols, patterns and colours in their artworks.

Australian Curriculum / Visual Arts / Years F-6

Explore ideas and artworks from different cultures and times, including artwork by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists, to use as inspiration for their own representations (ACAVAM106) (ACAVAM110) (ACAVAM114)

Use materials, techniques and processes to explore visual conventions when making artworks (ACAVAM107) (ACAVAM111) (ACAVAM115)

Create and display artworks to communicate ideas to an audience (ACAVAM108) (ACAVAM112) (ACAVAM116)

Victorian Curriculum / Visual Arts / Levels F-6

Explore and Express Ideas (VCAVAE013)(VCAVAE017) (VCAVAE021) (VCAVAE025) (VCAVAE029)
Visual Arts Practices (VCAVAV018) (VCAVAV022) (VCAVAV026) (VCAVAV030)
Present and Perform  (VCAVAP019) (VCAVAP023)(VCAVAP027)
Respond and Interpret (VCAVAR020) (VCAVAR024) (VCAVAR028) (VCAVAR032)

Curriculum Interpretation

This activity is devised in response to the exhibition Mithu Sen: mOTHERTONGUE, an exhibition of video, drawings, watercolours and found objects that explores language, identity and emotion. Students explore the relationships between language and art and awareness of ongoing colonial impact. They create a series of drawings and mixed media works based on techniques used by Sen, intended to build students’ awareness of art, technical skills and language.

By undertaking these activities, students:

  • Experiment with words and language as a material in art making.
  • Select and experiment with new approaches involved in process, composition and technical execution.
  • Consider Mithu Sen’s practice and ideas for inspiration for their own art making.
  • Consider how STEM ideas and principles are embedded in art making processes.

Secondary activities

Rebus and Identity, Works on Paper

This activity is inspired by Mithu Sen’s small drawings and collages Until you 206, 2021-22 (see above image carousel) featuring pierced paper, causing impressions or raised braille-like markings. Students will use pin pricks and watercolour to create their own artwork exploring language and identity.

This making activity explores the use of visual symbols to represent a word or phrase. This concept is called a rebus puzzle and is based on Sen’s work mOTHER I SPELL YOU WRONG, 2023. A rebus is a puzzle device that combines the use of illustrated pictures with individual letters to depict words or phrases. It was a favourite form of heraldic expression used in the Middle Ages to denote surnames.

Students will create their own rebus puzzle on paper, using pin prick techniques and watercolour as conceptual and aesthetic devices.

Step one: Students will design their own short rebus puzzle to indicate words or a phrase to describe themselves. For example: use a picture of an eye to refer to ‘I’  or the word “been” might be depicted using a bumblebee next to a plus sign (+) and the letter “n”.  If you are using letters remember that you will need to write them in reverse as when you flip them over, they will be backwards.

Step two: Prepare A4 or A3 watercolour paper by taping or pinning it face down onto a foam backing board. Use a greylead pencil to copy the rebus or symbols onto the paper. The piercing process means working into the back of a finished work, reversing the transferred image – similar to a print. Students may consider using tracing paper to transfer reverse images.

Step three: Use a thumb tack or etching tool to create holes or indents, prick marks along the drawn lines. This will mark the outlines with a fine lace-like form. Students can add additional prick marks to show shadow, experimenting with different pressures, sparse or closely spaced pricks.

Step four: Remove the paper from the foam backing board and flip over to the other side and begin adding watercolour. Use a small selection of colours to reflect something personal about the viewer or the rebus. Mithu Sen likes to use the colour pink in her work to reclaim a much loved colour she was not allowed to wear as a child.

Step five: In groups of 5, assemble drawings using coloured electrical tape and text to create a mind map. Lay out drawings to demonstrate commonalities or differences. This can be done on the table, floor or a wall. 

Extension:
Join the whole class’ mind map images to form a singular mind map, connected with electrical tape and text indicating commonalities and branching ideas. This may traverse the walls and floor of your room, much like the illuminated mind map created by Mithu Sen in Gallery 1. 

Australian Curriculum / Visual Arts / Years 7-10

Experiment with visual arts conventions and techniques (ACAVAM118) (ACAVAM125)
Develop planning skills for art-making by exploring techniques and processes used by different artists  (ACAVAM120) (ACAVAM127)
Practise techniques and processes to enhance representation of ideas in their art-making (ACAVAM121) ​​ (ACAVAM128)

Victorian Curriculum / Visual Arts / Levels 7-10

Explore and Express Ideas (VCAVAE033)(VCAVAE034)(VCAVAE040)(VCAVAE041)
Visual Arts Practices (VCAVAV035) (VCAVAV042)(VCAVAV036)(VCAVAV043)
Respond and Interpret(VCAVAR039)(VCAVAR046)

Curriculum Interpretation

This activity is devised in response to the exhibition Mithu Sen: mOTHERTONGUE, an exhibition of video, drawings, watercolours and found objects that explores language, identity and emotion. Students explore the relationships between language and art and awareness of ongoing colonial impact. They create a series of drawings and mixed media works based on techniques used by Sen, intended to build students’ awareness of art, technical skills and language.

By undertaking these activities, students:

  • Experiment with words and language as a material in art making.
  • Select and experiment with new approaches involved in process, composition and technical execution.
  • Consider Mithu Sen’s practice and ideas for inspiration for their own art making.
  • Consider how STEM ideas and principles are embedded in art making processes.
  • Develop their understanding of research and process driven art practice. 

Contact ACCA

This education resource has been produced by ACCA Education to provide information and classroom support material for education visits to the exhibition Mithu Sen: mOTHERTONGUE. The reproduction and communication of this resource is permitted for educational purposes only.

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Department of Education Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources