The national tour of a collaborative artwork which arrives at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow (GoMA) this autumn, is the inspiration for a dedicated programme promoting infant feeding in public.
Entitled, The Milky Way, the exhibition is part of a touring programme for Feed – an arts-based project which promotes inclusive, sustainable approaches to infant feeding in public. The Milky Way is presented by Glasgow Life, the charity which promotes mental, physical and economic wellbeing in the city through culture and sport.
At the core of The Milky Way exhibition is Feeding Chair, a multimedia artwork and infant feeding chair which has travelled to places including Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, Scarborough and Cardiff. Its visit to the city of Glasgow is the only Scottish stop on the tour.
This collaborative artwork has generated different partnerships and responses with each cultural venue it has visited, and in GoMA it has resulted in an events programme, a publication with creative group Mammas Write, and a new commission with the artist Jessica Ramm.
Feeding Chair: Chair with sound and video
13 September 2025 until 9 January 2026.
Feeding Chair is a specially designed chair with an integrated tablet, which will be on display in GoMA’s Domestic Bliss exhibition (Gallery 4). Paintings on the chair’s back and exterior are by Jade de Montserrat.
On the tablet are audio works by artists Krissi Musiol, Nicola Singh, Magda Stawarska and Charlotte Oliver, together with videos about infant feeding, gender and public space. Visitors will be welcome to take a seat and explore the content on the tablet. Those involved in the project have selected books and zines that are also available to read. Parents and carers are invited to breast, chest or bottle feed their baby – to take the space and take the time.
The work challenges negative attitudes towards feeding in public and encourages conversations about care, vulnerability, representation and human milk. The chair has been lent by Elaine Speight, co-curator of In Certain Places, University of Lancashire.
The Milky Way: Feed at GoMA
Saturday 13 September 2025, 11 am-12 pm
Marking the opening of the programme, members of the public are invited to bring their baby or toddler, take up the whole gallery and feed their infants, in any way they feel comfortable. The curators, artists and community collaborators behind Feed and The Milky Way will be there to introduce their work.
Jessica Ramm: Hard Edges Soft Layers
13 September–30 November 2025
In a new commission for The Milky Way, the artist Jessica Ramn has explored vulnerability in relation to motherhood, drawing from the fear, shame and wonder she experienced in the early days of parenthood. Hard Edges Soft Layers is an exhibition of new works that came out of her personal reflections alongside research into female collective action, histories of witchcraft, and portrayals of motherhood and breastfeeding in art. It will be exhibited in COMMONSpace (Gallery 2).
