IN THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION (2017-current)
These photographs explore medical technologies that assist parents with breastfeeding. The plastic pumps, tubes, and other devices commonly used by breastfeeding parents underscore how technology adds to and disrupts our sense of what bodies do “naturally.” These photos suggest that we think more carefully about how we categorize bodily experiences as “natural” or “artificial,” how entwined our lives are with technology, and how the experience of birth blurs the distinctions we usually make between our bodies and the external, “artificial" devices that are now so much a part of parenthood. These photos also point to how women in particular often experience intense societal demands to give birth, breastfeed, and care for children in a sort of effortless, heroic way that creates a serious burden for those who don’t measure up to that ideal. In the wake of stories in the news about women in the workforce, maternity leave, and the women’s marches of recent years, these photos try to make a generally hidden experience of parenthood visible. They aren’t meant to criticize the use of technology, or any failure of motherhood. Instead, they are meditations on all the complexities of our bodies and the ways that we’re entangled with our environments. This series has been published widely, including in People Magazine, Huffington Post, Feature Shoot, Buzzfeed, Redbook, Daily Mail, and Slate, among others.
