HMO nutrix is a bubbling fountain of synthetic human milk powered by deconstructed breast pumps. The artist describes the sculpture as a “live milk feed,” and the work meditates on feedback mechanisms between human and more-than-human life forms (e.g., microorganisms) as they bond through bodily fluids. The fluid in the sculpture includes human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs), which are potent sugars found in breast milk that, according to recent research, are indigestible by infants yet feed their gut bacteria, protecting them against diseases and possibly even shaping the development of their nervous systems.

The HMOs are also the protagonists of Milky Ways, a video that takes its viewer on a journey through a gut machine, or a Simulator of Human Intestinal Microbial Ecosystem fed with human milk. The simulator in the video is located at the University of Copenhagen, which the artist had access to when researching HMOs and filming this work. Sutela’s interaction with the machine, as well as with the scientists at the Center for Basic Metabolic Research, resulted in a poetic take on the changing landscape of the breast-gut-brain axis. This metaphor, as used by the artist, serves to sensitize us to the different kinds of interactions taking place among the multifarious life forms native to the human body, expanding the limits of our consciousness outside the cortex. Sutela wanted to highlight the mysteries of bodily functions, impossible to fully replicate in a lab, and focus on all the ways in which we are part and parcel of our environment. The video zooms both in on the gut and out to space.

The exhibition room is animated with biomimetic song by the German Khoomei singer Arjopa, tuning into an environment of milky streams and bubbles.

The exhibition was realized with the support of Haus der Kunst. The HMOs were provided by Inbiose. The video Milky Ways (2022) is a collaboration between Jenna Sutela and Primer. Milky Ways was supported by Screen City Biennale and will be presented as part of their program Other Minds from September 23 to October 20 at the Archenhold Observatory, Schering Stiftung as well as public venues around the city. The production of Milky Ways was funded by the Finnish Cultural Institute in Denmark, Nordic Cultural Foundation, The Bikuben Foundation, The Danish Arts Council, Frame Finland, and Obelske Family Foundation.