Milk, 16 Inkjet Prints (above and below)

Milk documents the illicit distribution and sale of raw dairy products within New York State. The substance shown here is kefir, a thick drink made through a process of fermenting milk with live bacteria cultures. Each strained glass of kefir in Milk is made from a different batch of raw milk illegally purchased at one of the sites shown. At the moment of sale these previously random locations become defined as crime scenes under State and Federal laws mandated by The Food and Drug Administration. Widely considered one of the greatest public health revolutions of the 20th century, pasteurization is the process of heating milk in order to kill harmful bacteria. This project finds itself at a peculiar moment in this history. The proliferation of such networks meant to provide access to unpasteurized, “natural” products marks a critical skepticism in the government’s interest in health and well-being. The paranoia that pasteurization has become a mechanism of political repression suggests an insecurity over sources of power and control in the post 9/11 American psyche.