Melanie Jackson

Taking milk as a starting point, ‘Deeper in the Pyramid’ engaged with the bio-economy and its representations, through the webs of care, exploitation and collective fantasy that interconnect life forms at every scale.

Taking a journey of lactic abstractions, through the webs of bio-invasion and collective fantasy that interconnect various life forms through milk, its technologies and representations. The ontologies of species and gender have always been shaped by our relations with this primal liquid, and ensuring a ready supply has driven research in genetics, fertility and robotics. It was open for radical transformation as new bio-organisms emerge, and real science merges with the fantastic.

Milk is polymorphic with an inclination for promiscuous collaboration – whether it be with bacteria, with cartoon avatars, with economics, pornography, racial politics or genetic re-calibration. It is fundamental to all mammalian bodies, whilst also being one of the most technologised fluids on earth.

Clay likewise takes liquid, solid and powder forms. It can accommodate any abstraction, yet is indexical. It a primal substance, yet also drives future technologies, is key to space travel, new techniques of circuit printing and is embraced by nanotechnology. Milk and clay are also found in the first technologies for farming and domestication.

Deeper in the Pyramid draws on these affinities, but also between drawing and sculpture and sculpture and the moving image.

The project was delivered across Grand Union, Primary in Nottingham and Banner Repeater in London later in 2018.

About the Artist

Melanie Jackson continues an ongoing interrogation of mutability and transformation. Drawing on the intimacies of knowledge at the nanoscale to the spectre of gargantuan monstrosities, there is an intrigue in the primordial to the yet-to-be-created. The ways that objects influence, socialise, or empower us – or render us insubstantial, are pursued to kaleidoscopic affect through sculpture, comic book sequences and moving image works.

Alongside the exhibition, an expanded public programme was presented. You can find out more about this through the links below: