Words + poetry by Mercedes Moreno, illustration by Alexa Maithé Henry
I dedicate my life to cheese after my grandmother shared this craft with me.
Cheese making has given me the time to meditate into the deep process of transforming milk into a solid curd. However milk is by itself a transformed product, a conversation between soil and ruminants.
During my travels and research I´ve come to understand milk as the expression of landscapes and a permanent bond with the creative female lineage. Regardless of who the mammal is, there is a universal truth coded in this liquid that makes it unique and powerful: the possibility of sustaining life. Nevertheless, easy access to homogenized, skimmed or ultra processed milk has created a division between scenes and has made us forget the value of this nutritious liquid.
Under the collapsed food system we live in, milk as an essential product is processed in poor environments that reduce the quality of animal livestock, deplete the soil and degrade the microorganism; which are able to pre-digest our nutrients. The consequence is that the value of food is being misunderstood. I believe that a brighter journey forward starts by reconsidering what we know as food today. With this piece, I try to cultivate the awareness of choosing to consume real milk.
Pure White
Some things are refined
Sugar, wheat, rice
Cocaine
Bleach
But what is it with milk?
I ask
That is pure white
She is medicine
Is life force
white blood out the udder
Milk is what she wants
Liquid or solid
nutritious white
or yellow fat
Universal mother
playful delight
Within
all she needs to survive
Grandmother was caring
she taught abundance,
elegance
She as milk,
both un- refined .
Alexa Maithé Henry
Honduran emergent artist Alexa Maithé reflects on how life is a constant transient state. A never- ending process of interconnection, duality and movement. This constant motion narrates an important metaphor of continuous loss as a unique form of living. Artistic limitations continuously challenge her to evolve her painting, sculpture, design & drawing techniques.
Maithé´s work invites the experiencer to make new personal associations & and transformations that reinforce to identify with an origin.
Mercedes Moreno
Guatemalan based cheesemaker and writer Mercedes Moreno has been empirically studying the art of cheese since when her grandmother shared this craft with her. Traveling documentation around Europe, United States and México have helped her enrich the knowledge related to agriculture, farming and the philosophy around Natural Cheese and milk´s fermentation.
Mercedes believes cheese is a spiritual practice that englobes the infinity of the present moment.
