Mother Tongue #8
190 x 240 mm, 130 pages
Houston/Los Angeles, US
Biannual
First published 2021
Founders/editors: Melissa Goldstein and Natalia Rachlin
Creative director and designer: Vanessa Saba
Mother Tongue was launched by two mothers tired of the traditional media portrayal of motherhood. In place of idealised aspiration and agony aunt problem-solving, the boldly-designed magazine focuses on the complex, real lives of mothers and the issues they share around ‘art, sex, pop culture, politics, food and a few things in between.’
The magazine returns, post-Trump's re-election, heeding the warning of the Doomsday Clock (89 seconds to midnight FYI; the closest it's ever been to midnight). But with with author-activist Soraya Chemaly's words emblazoned across a pair of striking gradient covers by Sophie Douala, their spirits remain undimmed:
‘This issue is essentially a kaleidoscopic invitation to rethink what things may look like if we—women—envision the future in a brave new light, and then make it real: in our own minds, in our own homes, in our communities, and then far, far beyond.’
Find Chemaly's full manifesto of ‘what ifs’ inside; alongside Kimberly Harrington reclaiming the term ‘slut’; Noor Tagouri interviewing her mother Salwa; a conversation on sex under fascism; lush photographs from Farah Al Qasimi; and an interview with Amanda Knox—infamously wrongly convicted for the murder of her roommate as an exchange student in Italy.
On the Journal:
At work with Mother Tongue, ‘The pandemic was definitely our spark, because we both (had to) put work on pause to stay home with our kids when schools shut down in the spring of 2020. The load on mothers the world over just got so intense, and we felt like there were so few arenas to have candid, more nuanced conversations about the realities of motherhood today...’
READ MORE
On Vimeo:
magCulture meets Mother Tongue, recorded at the magCulture Shop on 30 June 2022.
watch now