MOTHERS MILK

I was so grateful to be a part of this years Art in Odd Places: DRESS curated by Gretchen Vitamvas and Founded by Ed Woodham.

Mother’s Milk is a performance  inspired by a film I shot recently about motherhood, maternal exhaustion, and how our mothers' experiences/ burdens move through or affect their children from a young age. For this film, I wear my late mothers wig and I wear a dress that I constructed from a sewing pattern from the 1950’s with handmade fabric. The fabric is covered in fears, anxieties and worries postpartum.The words come directly from my Photography series Milk Diaries. This series was created at a time where I felt that I was consistently trying to navigate my artistic practice through intense waves of grief over the loss of my mum just 1 year prior. I was riddled with postpartum anxiety and a fear of dying. Within three months of my daughter being born, the pandemic began. Along with postpartum anxieties, healing associated with childbirth, obsessive tracking of my baby’s feeds, breastfeeding struggles, we were faced with the unknowns around COVID 19.

While working through this idea, I thought of my late mum and how I had not seen her cry until the Dr. told her they found a cancerous spot on her lungs. She then apologized for crying in front of me. She was born in 1949. I think about emotional labour, juggling life and motherhood and a patriarchal society that demands far too much. 

There are judgments if you choose not to nurse your baby. There are judgements if you cannot produce enough milk to exclusively nurse your baby if at all. There are judgements for nursing too long. Don’t nurse your baby in public, it makes men uncomfortable. Your body didn’t “bounce back”. “ You can start exercising 6 weeks postpartum” and “in 6 weeks you can start having sex”. The conflicting pressures, expectations and double standards that women face in every aspect of their lives are harmful. 

As a mother, my anxieties and fears are woven and imprinted into the fabric of daily life. At times they take over. At times they feel heavy and permanent. I wear them. The dress I created is from a pattern from the 1950’s. I see it as a symbol of a patriarchal society where double standards of beauty and expectation are burdens unfairly placed onto women’s shoulders. 

I am interested in this period in time, as a way to ironically reinforce the constructs of forced femininity and how women have dealt with societal standards, historically and now. 

Mother’s Milk is a performance about motherhood/ maternal exhaustion. For this performance, I’ll wear my mothers wig and wear a dress I constructed from a 1950’s sewing pattern. The fabric is handmade and covered in written words about postpartum anxiety and grief over my dead mother. 

I’ve poured my breastmilk into molds of domestic vessels such as plates and cups etc. and they've been frozen. I wander 14th street, perfectly coiffed, emotionless. Carrying. Balancing. Dealing with the perpetual melting of frozen milky vessels while doing my best (and likely failing) to clean up the mess. 

These stunning photos were taken by the talented Jonathan Bumble @jonathanbumble

https://elephant.art/art-in-odd-places-the-guerrilla-art-festival-on-14th-street/

https://theurbanactivist.com/idea/art-in-odd-places-dress-transforms-public-space-in-new-york/

Work supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Edmonton Arts Council.