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Jennifer Mourin
Jennifer Mourin is a self taught Malaysian artist
of Eurasian decent, living and working in Penang.
She uses mostly acrylics and oil-inks, but loves
the fluidity of gouache. Benevolently haunted by
memories of her mother’s Thai village in Kelantan
(North east Malaysia), she turned her love of
sarongs the women wore, and the strength of the
women there, into totems for her artistic identity.
One consistenly recurring theme in her art is
breastfeeding, as Jennifer is incredulous at how
such a loving, nurturing act is often considered a
controversial act in society, with women regularly
maligned for doing so.
each breastfeeding mother reduces problems of
pollution and waste disposal. Breastfeeding is not
resource intensive: there is no need to use up land,
water, metals, plastics, and fuels, all of which cost
money and deplete the environment. Beastfeeding
helps to protect our environment.
“So I reclaim this, revelling in the power of mothers
supporting mothers, women supporting women. A
woman has a right to choose whether she wants to
breastfeed her child. When she does choose, it is only
right that she is supported to breastfeed and nurtures
her child whether at home, in the workplace, or in
other places she exists as a part of the society that she
lives in. And this support should come from husband,
partner, immediate and extended family, her community,
and her socio-political leadership. And I am especially
fascinated by how women have supported one another
for generations and inter-generationally in many
communities: from sharing of knowledge, imparting
of skills and experience, to a comforting word, smile
or hand on the shoulder indicati