Kalbėk English

I inherit the pride and fear of history.

I fade silently in a foreign land.

I recognise myself in difference.

I perform leaving the others.

I try to hold on to both.

I let go.

Kalbėk English is a performance, resulting from a month-long research residency in Kaunas, Lithuania. My research at this time examined the inalienable link between language and nationalism, with the latter as a kind of hidden add-on to the unconscious process of language acquisition. After arriving in England at the age of 9, I experienced first-language attrition, in which English deleted and replaced Lithuanian to become my ‘native tongue’. Therefore, I sought to understand how such a process transformed the ideas of nationalism codified within the linguistic cognitive schemas, in which thoughts are given form on their way to becoming utterances.

The performance has a chronological flow that begins with a diluted journey of learning to speak. Moving through ages, the cognitive path towards six utterances is vocalised, which are layered on top of live-looped speech rhythms, blending English and Lithuanian. In between each utterance, I share personal memories of stumbling through language to discover, or be told, who I was and where I belonged.

This performance was set against the background of the looming deadline of the split between the UK and Europe, nearly 3 years after the Brexit vote, and likewise, I found myself teetering between the cultures, not yet aware that only several months later, I would leave the country and return to live in Lithuania.

Photos by Alexander Kell and Agata Odolczyk.