Michelle Peterson

I focus on reclaiming the iconic image of the nursing mother through a photographic series of 35 continuous frames documenting the last time I nursed my infant titled Jamie’s Last Breast. In the images my child is clothed while I am disheveled and openly processing the intense loss that this moment signifies. The images highlight the contrasting experiences of the mother and child. The unfiltered documentation of this process is meant to be a rebuttal and a resistance to the traditional and often religious representation of the relationship between the mother and child in which the emotional experience of the mother is negated.