Katya Ev
(ekaterina vasilyeva)
Lactating Bodies (in progress)
2023 - onwards
development with support of the Flemish Community (Be), Jubilee (Be), TWIIID (Be)
artistic research, participatory performative practice, ethical, legal & socio-economic research, series of sculptural objects (upcoming)
Image by Katya Ev
“Milk is a symbol of pleasure and ecstasy yet, precisely because of its primary function, it has remained unmarked as both a political and performative tool”1
Lactating Bodies is imagined as a ritual that will enact what Judith Butler calls the 'right to appear'2 of lactating bodies within the public sphere, challenging the notion that lactation should be confined to the private sphere and reframing it as a form of embodied labor.
For this performance, I will engage the people who are the “first concerned” within the very process of creation in order to give them a central role in determining for themselves the conditions in which they will appear: modalities and scenarios of a performance will be elaborated together with lactating mothers/people.
The performance stands between a poetic gesture of commoning the intimate body labor and a political position that shifts from the economy to the ecology of artistic practice. It is intended as an institutional critique and reflection of care practices and social impact in the cultural institutions. We aim to create a comforting and non-rigid ambience, a safe space for lactating persons to engage in a lactation process.
In opposition to the condensed time and space of a stage performance, Lactating bodies rethinks an exhibition as a live piece that unfolds in relation with temporal, spatial, and perceptual conditions of an art institution.
Residency at KANAL - Centre Pompidou, Brussels (Be) *
April 11 - 15 2023
*together with lactating mothers/people* ( --> open invitation)
sharing moment (RSVP):
Friday April 14th // 2p.m. - 6p.m.
K1, Brussels
Artistic collaborations: scenographers Ciel Grommen & Maximiliaan Royakkers, dramaturge and curator Azad Asifovich, doctor of philosophy Mélanie Weill (host-performer and co-writer), video artist Sarah Michel (documentation), legal specialist Tobias Van Royen
Co-productions: Jubilee (Be), the Flemish Community (Be), TWIIID (Be), KANAL - Centre Pompidou (Be)
1 Sexual Politics of Milk, Barbara Formis, The Journal of Somaesthetics Vol. 2, Nos. 1 and 2 (2016)
2 Judith Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015
Related artworks
Untitled (Twijfelaar)
bed, milk, 2019
Untitled (The dwell)
bed, milk, 2009
Back then I used cow milk and the work could only exist as long as the milk remains fresh. Following several occasions to re-exhibit this initial piece (2009) way later in time, I questioned myself for the overuse of cow milk for both political and ecological reasons. This self-critique directed me towards human milk.