This website is the second part to a series that attempts to explore the complexity of one’s relationship to smoking cigarettes through the lense of a maternal bond. It’s partner book, titled It Is A Mother To You, is divided into three sections. The collection investigates smoking not only as a physical habit but as an emotional and symbolic act, shaped by early development, teenage rebellion, and desire. The first section touches on Freud’s Psychosexual Stages of Development and the theory that habits such as cigarette smoking stem from a deficiency during the oral stage of development. Here, smoking becomes a symbolic supplement for something lacking, a surrogate for comfort or nurturing. The second part considers the cigarette as a cultural icon of defiance and autonomy. It examines how smoking has historically been marketed and perceived as an assertion of individuality, freedom, and resistance to authority, including maternal authority. The final section focuses on desire and the intimacy of shared smoking experiences. It reflects on the quiet moments of connection a cigarette can facilitate, revealing its dual nature as both a solitary and social ritual. Each section includes pixelated photographs of cigarette butts alongside official World Health Organization pictoral smoking warnings. These are broken up as well by segments of messages, often warnings or advice, from my own mother- a self-proclaimed social smoker. The collection is set entirely in Helvetica to mimic the sterile typographic language found on warning labels on the outside of cigarette packaging, further blurring the line between public health messaging and personal narrative.

This webpage expands the collection of smoking warning labels by combining my mother’s texts with video footage of friends smoking. By overlaying her words onto these personal moments, the work reimagines the printed warnings of cigarette packaging as digital gestures of both care and control. The act of clicking through messages mirrors the repetitive, habitual motion of smoking and the cyclical nature of motherly concern. The videos, imperfect and handheld, situate the viewer within a familiar world, one where smoking operates as a social ritual. In bringing the project into a digital sphere, this piece not only extends the archive of messages but transforms the relationship between warning and affection.