Hello! This is MAMAMILKMACHINE™.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ is a mama.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ makes milk and makes art.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ came into being because her being made a child.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ tries to make sense from an experience of motherhood.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ tries to look after their inner children while looking after an actual child.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ also relies heavily on people who can get things done and keep others alive, i.e.
others' acts of motherings.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ is not a machine, except for the part where she is a machine.
P.S. MAMAMILKMACHINE™ might have been especially active in art making because I undertook an MA in Fine Arts almost
immediately after giving birth (babies arrive when they arrive). I am grateful to the many people (especially Adeline Kueh, Regina de Rozario, and Ian Woo) who assured me that it was possible, and held space while I navigated all of it. While working on this MA, I was also working on a performance installation project Mending which takes Goh Lay Kuan's NuWa: Mender of Heavens (1988) as its departure point. I did this while also working on mothering, while redistributing the work of mothering to others. I continue to develop Mending and other works which can be considered maternal performance or maternalisms. I also later learnt about Lenka Clayton's Artist Residency in Motherhood, which might be something like what I found myself doing, and what many artist mothers find themselves doing.
All of this is to say that maternal performance is a timeworn practice, whether our foremothers thought about it in those terms, or not. And whether we are made of clay or made of machine parts, or flesh or spirit or bone, we have been made, and we can continue making.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ makes milk and makes art.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ came into being because her being made a child.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ tries to make sense from an experience of motherhood.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ tries to look after their inner children while looking after an actual child.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ also relies heavily on people who can get things done and keep others alive, i.e.
others' acts of motherings.
MAMAMILKMACHINE™ is not a machine, except for the part where she is a machine.
P.S. MAMAMILKMACHINE™ might have been especially active in art making because I undertook an MA in Fine Arts almost
immediately after giving birth (babies arrive when they arrive). I am grateful to the many people (especially Adeline Kueh, Regina de Rozario, and Ian Woo) who assured me that it was possible, and held space while I navigated all of it. While working on this MA, I was also working on a performance installation project Mending which takes Goh Lay Kuan's NuWa: Mender of Heavens (1988) as its departure point. I did this while also working on mothering, while redistributing the work of mothering to others. I continue to develop Mending and other works which can be considered maternal performance or maternalisms. I also later learnt about Lenka Clayton's Artist Residency in Motherhood, which might be something like what I found myself doing, and what many artist mothers find themselves doing.
All of this is to say that maternal performance is a timeworn practice, whether our foremothers thought about it in those terms, or not. And whether we are made of clay or made of machine parts, or flesh or spirit or bone, we have been made, and we can continue making.