Fertile Water

Our research speculates on the concept of reproductive fluids, that we also call “fertile water”, as a form of currency. These waters, in which the aquatic procreation of various species takes place, behave as a form of capital in the consumerist economy, with a certain exchange value and high demands driving the markets.

We interrogate the hierarchization of reproductive fluids classified by the economic net worth of species, based on the efficiency or scarcity of their bodies. How does the monogamous cis-infrastructure of humans, “function to promote or prevent the encounter of different bodies, to enforce or prohibit sexual reproduction, and to facilitate or preclude the circulation of certain reproductive fluids (blood, sperm, milk)”? Who owns reproductive fluids once they leave the body? Could they have their own economic agency? Could they circulate without exploiting any species? And how does the economy rely on non-capitalist forms of value such as intimacy?

Fertile water