MILK

(2022-2024)

Edition of unique 62 fermenting sculptures made with Kilner preserve jars, Caribbean rum, hair, kidney beans, sugar cane, soil, bodily fluid, urbanscape debris.

The iconic 19th century British invention, Kilner jars, meet a contemporary approach to sacred place-making honouring African Indigenous Knowledge Systems. 

In conversation with scientific and medical advancements obtained by exploiting living and deceased Black bodies without consent, MILK re-imagines wet specimens as emotional and spiritual time capsules. n:u (melissandre varin) intentionally re-places and re-assembles elements of their body and more than human ones as a reparative gesture.

MILK offers an unusual transcultural account of and on the overlooked, unseen, and taken for granted. 

First presented at Eastside Projects in 2024 in honour of their late mother’s 62nd birthday. The atmosphere-maker who inherited hair harvesting practice from their mother, dedicates the artwork to accidental, imperfect, yet loving, everyday acts of cultural preservation.