Step into a world where history and art intertwine
Inspired by the laundry billowing from Portuguese balconies, I was thrilled to realise a long-held dream - to create my first public art installation in Portugal. A celebration of the women of the world: mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers and daughters.
Raising A Nation ran for a full month at the Malaica Social Art Club in Caldas da Rainha, a UNESCO City of Culture. The process took me deep-diving down some fascinating rabbit holes.
The Ritual of the Everyday
The installation reimagines the daily ritual of hanging washing as a profound act of love and a symbol of care. It transforms a simple domestic task into a testament to the tireless work that builds families and fuels communities—including those whose love now lives only in the wind and memory.
The Alchemy of Creation
Women carry the ancestral power of creation: the gift of growing life, the threshold of birth, and the alchemy of breast milk—the first food of a nation. This is more than sustenance; it is a child’s first connection to the village, a biological transmission of strength, immunity, and love.
To celebrate the female breast and the gift of milk, I created a giant boob out of papier-mâché—a labour of love that took three weeks to complete.
Or perhaps…
A journey of sight and sound
Through striking portraits of real women, personal legacies are interwoven with the timeless wisdom of folklore and the traditions they’ve carried forward.
Raising A Nation is an immersive journey—an invitation to connect with the unyielding spirit of the women who shape, feed and fuel a nation.
Language & Lavadouros
Who would have thought there was such a deep connection to washing…
Mexericar - to gossip / to meddle.
Mexeriqueira - a gossip: the term mexerico (gossip) is deeply tied to the “mixing” and “stirring” movements of communal work, like washing or sorting grains. It describes the way a story is “rubbed” and “twisted” until it changes, much like the clothes on the granite.
O Ciclo do Mexerico: the Gossip Cycle, instead of the Wash Cycle: just as the women “stirred” the water and “rubbed” the clothes, they “stirred” the news of the town.
Visit my website to find out more about the inventions that liberated women, the history of public wash houses (lavadouros), the Right To Dry Movement and how AI is affecting our lives - it’s been a truly fascinating discovery.
Make My Fucking Milk
This is the fifth instalment in the White Fire series of poems. I wrote this about breastfeeding as part of the installation. To read others, click the red button below.
The lights dimmed, the washing line was illuminated, and we mashed up the sound to recreate the echoes of being in a public washhouse. Listen to the recorded spoken word version below.
make my fucking milk
sorry i haven’t seen
the latest coolest film
cos i’ve been intently busy
trying to make you milk
trying to get my tits working
human cow - I am your mother
trying to make you milk
suck on me ‘cos you’re my baby
I will make you milk
just suck
suck
suck on me
I will make you milk
suck hard
deliberately
suck hard on my human teet
suck, suck
suck me hard
I will make you milk
suck, suck, suck, me hard
suck me hard but gently
suck, suck, create demand
don’t clamp your gums too tightly
if you don’t suck
suck me hard
I can't
make
you
milkInspired by and dedicated to my daughter, Sarah Hicks-Campbell
Listen
Words and voice by Suzy Starlite. Recorded by Simon Campbell and fucked up by the wonderful Filipe Chagas at the Supertone SonicLab. ℗ © Supertone Records, 2026.