Acquired milk? New exhibition explores the darkish facet of dairy

Milk is a instrument of empire, a central motif of the maternal physique and a staple of the human food regimen and is exclusive in its capability to cross political, cultural and financial spheres. Now, the Wellcome Assortment knits collectively these disparate strands in a brand new London artwork exhibition, ‘Milk’, which considers every part from the perceived each day wholesome behavior to take advantage of’s standing as a advertising and marketing instrument for the white nuclear household, alongside a wider consideration of the altering panorama of dairy farming.

Milk: exploring the politics of dairy

‘Milk is woven into the everydayness of our lives, whether or not it’s in a cup of tea or espresso, or within the routines of toddler feeding. It’s one thing many people within the UK take as a right,’ say exhibition curators Marianne Templeton and Honor Beddard. ‘It’s additionally a medium by which we are able to unpick bigger questions on our diets and meals system, the politics and economics of toddler feeding, relationships between people, animals and the surroundings. Why can we eat and drink what we do, and who will get to decide on what they eat? Milk has been central to many individuals’s diets within the UK for over a century. Most households nonetheless purchase dairy milk however there are actually many milk alternate options obtainable. We’re additionally at a crossroads for the dairy trade after Brexit, with the potential for brand new insurance policies to form the sector and an pressing want for climate-conscious agriculture. On the identical time, human milk is making its method into on-line markets and corporations are beginning to prototype artificial variations of human milk.’

This distinctive standing given to take advantage of is right here mirrored in a mish-mash of media, from historic fashions in terracotta of a mule carrying cheese, courting from the third or 2nd century BC, to up to date items from artists together with Julia Bornefeld, Sarah Pucill, Hetain Patel, and Lucy + Jorge Orta. They be part of supplies, from Nineteen Thirties advertising and marketing to a Nineteenth-century feeding bottle, in a various exploration into how milk got here to be a staple of our on a regular basis diets. Milk’s political function is due partly to its function in advertising and marketing campaigns of white households – the face of milk – but additionally acknowledges the affect of Herbert Hoover’s eugenicist manipulation of the connection between ‘pure’ milk and social purity. 

These references sit alongside private narratives that discover the hijacking of the breastfeeding narrative by components firms, feeding into problems with empire and exploration, a stress expressed within the work of the artists. ‘A brand new fee by Ilana Harris-Babou, Let Down Reflex, combines private testimonies about breastfeeding by the artist’s mom, sister and niece with the broader political context that surrounds toddler feeding,’ the curators say. ‘It explores the connection of the person to maternal well being care techniques, the inequalities inside these constructions and the way these affect the alternatives which might be obtainable to new dad and mom. The primary-hand testimony inside this work permits us to consider the passing down of maternal data and the way these concepts and beliefs sit alongside public well being messaging. The work references the lullaby ‘All the beautiful horses’, which was mentioned to have been sung by an enslaved African mom who was separated from her toddler with a purpose to look after and wet-nurse her enslaver’s youngster. Harris-Babou attracts hyperlinks between this traumatic historical past and the extreme inequalities in Black maternal well being outcomes seen immediately within the US and UK.’

The exhibition eschews a strictly chronological order, though the curators level out that to know the way forward for milk, the historical past should be clearly established. ‘What’s outstanding in lots of circumstances is that you simply may be taking a look at a historic object, however loads of the questions it raises are nonetheless very related immediately. For instance, within the part on Scientific Motherhood we’ve got included some crochet toddler weighing scales from the Nineteen Thirties. These would have been utilized by well being guests throughout residence visits to new moms to weigh the toddler. These weights would have been plotted on improvement charts based mostly on standardised weights for the newborn’s age. A perceived ‘failure’ to fulfill these requirements or expectations can create emotions of disgrace or nervousness, regardless that these requirements don’t recognise the numerous various factors that may affect on beginning weight, for instance well being circumstances or earnings. Weighing infants and counting on information and measurements to find out the wholesome progress of an toddler continues to be broadly debated immediately, with many feeling it fuels insecurities round inadequate breastmilk that may impede breastfeeding progress.’

In the end, the curators are eager for guests to contemplate questions corresponding to why we predict milk is so important to our well being, who decides what good well being is, what values our meals techniques are constructed on and the way milk has been used to exert energy in addition to present care. ‘Milk is a topic each private and political, and the exhibition goals to point out the way it touches on many facets of our lives, whether or not we drink it or not,’ the curators add. ‘We hope guests will think about the impacts of the standardisation and regulation of milk and of the our bodies that produce and devour it, and the function science and trade have performed in shaping concepts about milk which might be current in Britain immediately.’