16-18 February 2023
A Festival without borders.
Mother Tongues Festival is the largest festival celebrating linguistic diversity through the arts in Ireland. Its mission is to showcase the country’s rich artistic and cultural tapestry, and connect people through the power of language.
The Festival encourages everyone to colour outside the lines, learn something new and have fun while celebrating their mother tongue and the rich kaleidoscope of languages spoken in Ireland. Year after year, our Festival demonstrates that multilingualism is a reason to come together and celebrate. 2023 was no exception.
Building Community through Creative Multilingualism
Join us for a roundtable discussion on themes of creativity, multilingualism and community building. The conversation will be moderated by Assistant Dean International at the University of Limerick, Dr Anca Minescu, an expert in the field of ethnic relations, cultural diversity and group identities. Dr Minescu will be joined by artists and other academics to discuss why artistic communities, policy makers and government bodies need to embrace multilingualism through creative means, and how this can be done.
This discussion will be followed by a participatory Workshop exploring the topic of multilingualism and the arts at a grassroots level.
Words Work
For the 6th edition (16-18 February 2023) the festival will continue to offer workshops, events and engaging activities for families, but also present a new creative development opportunity for artists and writers who are interested in exploring and claiming multilingual processes as part of their artistic work.
‘Words Work’ will explore processes and methods of making multilingual creative work, led by multilingual writer and artist Caroline Bergvall.
Through this opportunity, we aim to provide artists and writers based in Ireland and of mixed cultural and linguistic heritage with the confidence, tools and resources to explore language as an integral part of their work and cultural identity.
Past editions
Support the Festival!
Mother Tongues Festival is one of Ireland’s most diverse and dynamic initiatives.
Our goal is to create a space that fosters belonging and celebrates linguistic and cultural identities through education and the arts and so far we have been able to engage more than 1,000 children and 100 artists in our programmes.
The next 12 months are key for us to deliver our programmes. We need your help to welcome communities to create, enjoy and share culture and creativity. We want to nurture the next generation of artists. We want to continue to come together through creativity. We want to provide some joy to help us through feelings of isolation and loss and to make migrant families feel at home in Ireland.
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