Cheese. Production and Gender Relations in Mika Rottenberg’s Dairy

Mika Rottenberg’s video installation Cheese examines the relationship between production and biological reproduction, challenging the notion that they can be easily separated as Western political theory suggests. The installation highlights physical processes such as hair growth and lactation, which cannot be halted like labour. This paper analyses the production relations of milk from a materialist and feminist perspective, focusing on actors and practices. It argues that the video stages them as hyper-feminine, avoiding any didactic content on veganism, anti-speciesism or feminism. Keywords biological reproduction, Milk, Udder, Mika Rottenberg, feminist art history