Emerald Repard-Denniston

Drink Your Mama's Milk

Drink Your Mama's Milk

“Being a person of colour and referred to as "whitewashed" describes a minority assimilating to whiteness and Western thinking. The "whitewashed" person does not necessarily abandon their own culture, but instead embraces others besides their own. I connect the subject of the cow with the female body and the cow's milk to symbolize whitewashing. In this series, cow's milk is poured over the head and rubbed into the skin, making the subjects actually wash their body with whiteness. The consumption of cow's milk is a cultural phenomenon in North America, a maternal act of intaking nutrition. In addition, it causes an allergic reaction to most Asian bodies that lack lactase, required to digest female cow's milk. The Asian body biologically rejects it, representing the struggle of the Asian Canadian diaspora to assimilate to whiteness. In Asia and North America, priding oneself on being whitewashed and attempting to succeed in a white supremacist, capitalist system harms Asian identities. The consumption of milk products does not build strong bones.”