FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY
FEED (IMAGES)
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper.
2018-2021.
C. 1970s, Japan.
From Harvard University's Countway Library’s Center for the History of Medicine.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1850s, UK.
From the McGoogen Library of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper.
2018-2021.
C. 1970-1980ss, US
From the McGoogen Library of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1820-75.
From The Archives at Yale-New Haven Hospitals.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1000-1050 CE, US.
From the Gartner Pediatric History Center.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1955, US.
From Dittrick Medical History Center, Case Western Reserve University
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1700s, France
From the Gartner Pediatric History Center.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1802, UK
From the McGoogen Library of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1911, US.
From Dittrick Medical History Center, Case Western Reserve University
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1976, US.
From Dittrick Medical History Center, Case Western Reserve University
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1970s-1980s, US.
From Dittrick Medical History Center, Case Western Reserve University
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1850s, Czech Republic.
From the McGoogen Library of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1500 BCE-300 CE, Greece.
From Dittrick Medical History Center, Case Western Reserve University
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1900s, India
From the McGoogen Library of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. unknown, Syria
From the Gartner Pediatric History Center
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper.
2018-2021.
C. 1864-1915, US.
From The Archives at Yale-New Haven Hospitals.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1815, UK.
From the McGoogen Library of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper.
2018-2021.
C. unknown.
From The Mutter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
c. 19th century, U.S.
From the Gartner Pediatric History Center
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper.
2018-2021.
C. 2-1 BC, Italy.
From The Archives at Yale-New Haven Hospitals.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1900s, India.
From the McGoogen Library of Medicine, University of Nebraska Medical Center.
5"x7" digitally printed on archival metallic paper
2018-2021.
C. 1879, US.
From The Archives at Yale-New Haven Hospitals.
5"x7" image on 8” x 11” archival metallic inkjet paper with metallic mat and 11”x14” silver decorative frame
Framing credit: Panopticon Imaging ; Photo credit: Alexa Cushing
5"x7" image on 8” x 11” archival metallic inkjet paper with metallic mat and 11”x14” silver decorative frame
Framing credit: Panopticon Imaging; Photo credit: Alexa Cushing
5"x7" image on 8” x 11” archival metallic inkjet paper with metallic mat and 11”x14” silver decorative frame
Framing credit: Panopticon Imaging; Image Credit: Alexa Cushing
5"x7" image on 8” x 11” archival metallic inkjet paper with metallic mat and 11”x14” silver decorative frame
Framing credit: Panopticon Imaging; Photo credit: Alexa Cushing
“Feed” is a photographic archive of historical infant feeders, bottles, breast pumps and nipple shields located at various medical collections throughout the United States. “Feed” captures the objects’ appearance, development, how they changed (or not), the racial and economic divide in their uses, and connects them to the ongoing debate of breast versus bottle feeding, which is traced from the Roman era to the present day. Through the cataloguing and presentation of these everyday objects, I hope to elevate and recognize the invisible labor that went into feeding infants throughout history and today.
The care & stress, loss & growth, that went into each of these bottles and their use when an infant needed food and the parent could not provide it, due to their sex, physical ability, socio-economic status, culture, era, geographic location, or willingness to produce milk, all determined how a parent fed their baby. Some cultures solely breastfed an infant until age two or three, whether through the parent or a wet nurse, while others immediately drank another mammal’s milk, commercially made formula or homemade mixtures.
The “Feed” project is as much about my own process of feeding & caring for my child, as it is about the bottles found in the archives. As I photographed these items, I pumped, fed, weaned, collected, or discarded my own milk for my infant. I wanted to research, place & find myself within the history of these parents and their choices, to not feel isolated as both an artist and as a parent.
This project would not be possible without a RISD Faculty Development Grant, and the generous librarians and curators at the Archives at Yale-New Haven Hospitals, the Dittrick Medical History Center at Case Western Reserve University, the Gartner Pediatric History Center, Harvard University's Countway Library’s Center for the History of Medicine, the McGoogen Library of Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, the Mutter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Tompkins-MacCaw Library at Virginia Commonwealth University.
*For a comprehensive image list of "Feed", please contact me through the contact form page.*