Lilac Milk – What We Share

Using performed self-portraiture, LiLAC MiLK’s series “What We Share” functions as a reminder of the emotions and behaviors that bind us all together. While we all inhabit life differently, our fluctuating internal states and complex emotions are always present. This is what we share. In this series, like an actor in a film, MiLK uses her physicality to enact diverse situations and inhabit multiple personas that bring to the surface our shared humanity, while also blurring distinctions between individuality and universality. Although she and we are none of these people, we can all see ourselves in them, in their worries, their emotions, and their struggles.

LiLAC MiLK is a multimedia artist, photographer, and filmmaker based in Ithaca, NY. She grew up in a small town in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France and spent the later part of her upbringing in Syracuse, NY. She studied film, photography, and visual arts at Ithaca College and graduated in 2019. Her artistic interests include filmmaking, songwriting, live concert photography, and photographic self-portraiture. In her work, she explores emotion and identity through narrative storytelling, and is particularly interested in the dynamic created between environmental situations and emotional states and how they mold and influence individuals across a lifetime.