Rumina, 2017
Video (8:09 min, HD) and play (1 h)

Consider the act of suckling.

All of us are likely to have an experience of it. We drink and eat milk, or we have drunk and eaten it. Sometimes it is with our mouth against a nipple. At other times a milking robot does the labor of suckling for us, while bacteria and enzymes process the milk into foods. Usually we just want the fluid and do not want intimacy with the cow’s body.

There are also other kinds of suckling situations that we need to talk about. Situations that may have milk or not, or situations where the milk is invisible. Consider animals feeding on human milk that was more common in herstory. And consider the sucking of nipples between lovers.

What happens in situations of suckling? They can be banal, caring, greedy, painful, unethical, erotic, or transgressive. There are different intentions and mental experiences involved. Often we can only try to understand what it means for other beings to be suckled. What exactly is, for example, a cow’s experience when a human or a robot works its genetically engineered udders? And how do I create a meaningful suckling situation with a lover – is my role to be a dominator, a baby, a cow, a machine? What are the power positions and ethics in situations of suckling?

Attending to what takes place in singular situations of sucking nipples, we might be able to gain insight into wider cultures of suckling. What do we make of the humankind’s giant lust for cheap milk when it comes to animal lives and global warming? Or the human population increase in relation to the cultural norm that everyone should reproduce and care for their biological offspring. In my thirty-something-year-old person’s speculations on whether or not try to have a child, climate change anxiety mixes with deep curiosity towards the potential of my body to build another being through procreation and feeding. In our era, it seems important to challenge the normative ways when it comes to, for example, using our nipples, eating, reproducing and co-existing with other species.

The video and play focus on nipples as interfaces, milk as a political fluid, and mouths that sing and suckle other beings for nutrition, intimacy and sexual arousal. One act of the play was developed into an independent performance, Suckling Animal Sibling.

Music for the video composed by Miša Skalskis, voice-over read by Shraddha Borawake.

Parts of the play were developed using improvisation methods with the co-actors George Nesbitt and Alexander Iezzi. The music was composed in collaboration with Iezzi. The play was performed at UBIK Theater, Rotterdam.