Mammals and Suckers​

Before you stands Mammals and Suckers – a global mining consortium that bores into the fabric of the planet, slicing through its layers, draining its innards. Its tentacles reach further and deeper in search of the precious resources of life: oil, gas, oils, sap, milk, resins and blood. Ready to suck them dry from the liquid bodies of earth, sea, human and more than human. On its lips, the catchy extractivist anthem Drill, baby, drill! It reverberates through empty oil wells, seabed pipelines, global supply chains and slaughterhouses. It echoes dully across the concrete of the metropolis. Its unyielding structure is built on trade agreements, its veins flow with flammable liquid that heats the earth. It thrives wherever there is still something to be smelted, extracted, turned into numbers or commodities. It sucks.  

But we are mammals too. The act of nursing and sucking, in both humans and animals, is a fundamental life-sustaining function, one that builds bonds and relies on the exchange of fluids between two bodies. These fluids are rich in nutrients, but also in toxins present in the natural environment. In this tangled reality, milky fluids cannot be separated from arctic currents or gastric juices, from amniotic seas or tankers of liquid waste. In her philosophy, Astrid Neimanis interprets milk and amniotic fluids as metaphors for the planetary water environment – intertwined, connecting bodies, creating new, multiple forms of life. 

The exhibition Mammals and Suckers at HOS Gallery is a dialogue between Ida Karkoszka and Karolina Wysocka, two visual artists united by their engagement with socio-ecological issues and their critical approach to sculptural material.  At the heart of the exhibition are two large-scale installations. In The Taste of Joy, the artist continues the ideas explored in her sculpture Mamma, created for the Malta Biennale 2024. This series of several dozen alabaster sculptures resembles both animal udders and the shapes of popular gummy sweets. The breast motif is a primal, cross-species symbol of motherhood, care, vitality and life. It is also a metonym for the planetary water environment - interweaving, connecting bodies, creating new, diverse forms of life. The noble material and form of the sculptures are reminiscent of Paleolithic Venus figurines, known as fertility goddesses. These are contrasted with the brutal, mechanical production line that churns out colourful gummy sweets made from the bones, skins and tendons of farmed animals. For the artist, they represent the contemporary livestock industry and the extractivism that treats animal bodies as raw materials for production. They symbolise consumerism, pop culture and capitalism, which produces ‘sweet and pleasant’ products without regard to their environmental cost or health impact. 

The installation Breaking Mercury consists of latex tubes, wooden pipes bought at a flea market, glass and ceramic elements, all woven into a tangled web.  The inspiration for its creation came from historical medical machinery and devices used in industrial animal husbandry, such as milking machines. The archaic pipes made of exotic wood serve as a symbol of colonialism for the artist, while the ceramic elements evoke associations with the organic underwater world. The title refers to a material that is both the only naturally occurring liquid metal and an extremely toxic substance. In antiquity, mercury was a plaything of the wealthy, known as ‘quicksilver’. In many languages, its name is associated with Mercury, the Roman god of commerce. Wysocka metaphorically alludes to the pipelines that encircle the earth and the systems of resource extraction. The project critiques individualism in the context of the hydro-community of interspecies coexistence. The artist is interested in the flows and relationships between different water bodies – both human and non-human – filled with bodily fluids, blood, milk, glands and plant sap that different beings exchange with each other. This exchange can take place through symbiosis, care and nurturing, but it is also often marked by speciesist and chauvinist violence.  

Wysocka and Karkoszka work closely with sculptural materials, examining them critically. They are interested in their provenance, production methods and the meanings embedded in different materials such as luxurious alabaster, mahogany wood, latex, ceramics and glass. Both artists invite the viewer into an immersive space that provokes reflection on the human being’s place as a mammal within the ecosystem and the interwoven connections of the ‘hydro-community’.  

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