Showing in the After Hours Gallery until October 2nd, 2022
“Milk Diaries was created at a time where I felt that I was consistently trying to navigate my artistic practice through intense waves of grief over the loss of my mum just 1 year prior. I was riddled with postpartum anxiety and a fear of dying. Within three months of my daughter being born, the pandemic began. Along with postpartum anxieties, healing associated with childbirth, obsessive tracking of my baby’s feeds, breastfeeding struggles, we were faced with the unknowns around COVID 19.
Will my baby be okay? What if my baby gets sick? What about check-ups? Am I feeding my baby enough? What if my milk stops producing and I can’t feed my baby? What if I get sick and can't feed my baby? Am I spending adequate time with my oldest child?
As a way to ease my anxieties, I started pumping breast milk. I would pump at 5:00 every morning before or after our first feed. I began writing thoughts or worries along with the date on each bag of breastmilk. I would then photograph the bags of breastmilk as a way of document my life postpartum. The act of pumping breastmilk and freezing it, was a ritualistic and meditative way for me to cope and ease anxieties around getting sick and not being able to feed my baby.
Postpartum anxieties were and are exacerbated by the times we are living in.”
Kasie Campbell
Website :www.kasiecampbell.com
Social media @kasie.m.campbell