Rethink Milk uses the design of artefacts to re-imagine and explore the complex territory of Milk.
Milk is the absolute pure and perfect food. Milk is about both eating and being eaten from, a form of gentle cannibalism. Milk has sustained mammalian life for millions of years.
This body of work is a collection of responses, ranging from practical interventions to critical and speculative reflections and propositions. Themes explored include good and bad taste, the role of human Milk in the public realm, the scale of mothering, non-sexual dyadic relationships and ‘sustainable’ Milk. The use of design is to make the implicit-explicit, the intangible-tangible
Urgent changes are needed to reverse the human impacts on the environment which are devastating human and collapsing planetary health. Current global food systems have considerable environmental impacts, and radical changes are needed. Human milk and non-human milks are significant to issues of sustainability; relating to human and environmental health and equality. Milk is a food deeply entangled in western diets. Low breastfeeding and chestfeeding, and high dairy consumption rates affect human health, wellbeing and have numerous ecological an environmental impacts. Socio-cultural norms dramatically impact food and behaviour patterns and perceived ‘choices’.
The material world through connections to routines, rituals and habits help to affirm and reinforce these cultural belief systems, social norms and values. Both design and food are socially complex. As such critical design can be used as a medium to understand, dissect and reflect on milk in UK culture. Design allows unique insights into understanding these material realities.
