Video: Mappa Mundi Mother Tongue at LinguaMania
On 27 January 2017, some 2,500 people joined the research team of Creative Multilingualism in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum for LinguaMania. A wealth of activities offered participants first-hand experience of our society’s linguistic diversity. At the heart of the museum, in the atrium presided over by the colossal Apollo from the Temple of Zeus in Olympia, young performers from Pegasus Theatre, including refugees, created a giant map on the floor of the museum, which they brought to life with multilingual stories and songs.
In the vibrant and energetic performance, entitled Mappa Mundi Mother Tongue, the young actors tell their own traditional folk stories from countries around the world in a celebration of languages and the rich cultural suggestions we share. The piece shines a light on how we carry our cultures with us, wherever we go, through the words that express who we are.
Mappa Mundi Mother Tongue also enacts the significance of Creative Multilingualism in the context of the Open World Research Initiative (OWRI). OWRI is a major funding initiative for modern languages by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It is dedicated to establishing a new and exciting vision for languages research in response to the challenges and opportunities presented by a globalised research environment and multilingual world.
Watch the three-part performance below:
Feature photo by Jalaikon / Pegasus Theatre
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Find out more about LinguaMania
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