Microreview: Nourishing the Unborn

Microreview Oc 2024 1
E. Onur Ceritoglu, 2023
Microreview Oc 2024 2
E. Onur Ceritoglu, 2023
Microreview Oc 2024 3
Kadija de Paula, 2022
Microreview Oc 2024 4
Kadija de Paula, 2022
Date
2024 August
Subtitle
E. Onur Ceritoglu reviews Kadija de Paula: Milk it: pasteurized human milk made to nourish the future of those who have not yet digested the insult of being born. Silkscreen on glass bottles, instruction sheet, 2022.
Type
microreview
Author / Publisher
E. Onur Ceritoglu for NewsLibrary
Author Info

E. Onur Ceritoglu is an architect, artist, and urban researcher based in Winterthur. In his artworks, he contextualizes urban life through a material-driven experience and socially engaged art practices; his research in urban studies focuses on informal labor, the materiality of waste, and reuse in architecture.

https://onurceritoglu.com/

Language

English

Also published here

Newsletter No. 64

Instagram @sarn_switzerland

Reviewed Publication

Kadija de Paula: Milk it: pasteurized human milk made to nourish the future of those who have not yet digested the insult of being born. Silkscreen on glass bottles, instruction sheet, 2022.

Last summer, I visited the finissage of 'ALIMENTO', organized by la_cápsula. The curatorial concept was based on anthropophagy (the custom and practice of eating human flesh) as a metaphor for exploring current reciprocal and circular food systems. At the tropically hot Greenhouse Art Lab, I found myself holding a bottle branded as ‘Milch: Pasteurized Human Milk’. This work by Kadija de Paula caught me within seconds, not because the gently provocative banner showed a sketch drawing of a giant dripping nipple but (maybe) because of having recently experienced the difficulties of breastfeeding in my own family. Kadija, ‘privileged,’ in her own words, ‘not to be pregnant’, had placed instructions into the bottle about how to stimulate the nipples in order to produce and distribute human milk. The work imagines a food utopia in which human lactation is a sustainable common practice that supersedes the exploitation of other nonhumans with mammary glands. What’s more, she challenges the societal norms by suggesting caring for others is possible without getting pregnant.