Mika Sperling

In Mother Tongue, Mika Sperling (*1990) examines how origins and culture influence interpersonal relationships based on her personal family history. Language plays a key role in this. Her young daughter and her Vietnamese mother-in-law are the focus of the photographic examination. Sperling experiments with perspectives, close-ups, and reflecting surfaces and shows the surroundings and personal objects of the individuals portrayed.
Trained in a documentary tradition, Sperling represents a new generation of photo-essayists that takes up historical references and processes them in various mediums and objects so as to engage more intensively with the audience.