Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency Exhibition
Bentley Choi
Due to COVID-19, many artists came up with a new idea to promote their exhibitions: a virtual tour with professional curators. ‘Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency,’ held in the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Columbia College Chicago, also offered a curatorial tour of the exhibition. Eight artists from the globe addressed reproductive health and justice by giving images of stories that yet unfolded. Although human history has been explored for centuries, talking about the history of abortion, injustice in reproductive rights of the non-cis population (trans or non-binary people and more) is sometimes considered taboo in our society. Reflecting current social activism movements on minority rights, this exhibition gives a great opportunity to us to ponder global reproductive justice.
The exhibition starts with Carmen Winant’s installation, ‘history of my pleasure.’ Winant harmoniously put various photos from magazines and alternative media in the 1970s’ feminist movements to depict women’s sexuality and pleasure through different tactile modes. She conveys a notion that women’s pleasure cannot be defined by a single term, and society should not try to fit masculine standards that hinder a full actualization of women’s identity and rights. Winant’s holistic view on women’s pleasure from this installation seems to demand the government and organisations with the power to change a current society that limits women’s rights.
Doreen Garner’s ‘Betsey’s Flag’ - a dark, 16-stars instead of 13 Betsy Ross flag patched together with staples while the other side shows a complex surface with beads and red and pink strings - highlights victims of the birth of modern gynecology. Garner added three more stars to a colonial U.S. flag to address three black women, Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey, who were subjects of J. Marion Sims’ medical research on vesicovaginal fistula. Sims, known as the father of modern gynecology, conducted unethical, non-consensual experimental surgery on women without anesthesia to develop a treatment for childbirth side effects. Furthermore, 16 stars symbolise 16 beds in Sims’ laboratory, conveying an unrecognised stigma and trauma of women behind the current advanced medical technology. ‘Betsey’s Flag’ ties social injustice towards women in the 1840s back to contemporary social issues revolving around sexism and overly politicised female body images. It reminds us to find the root cause creating the intersectionality of racism and sexism in our history to find the solution for current reproductive injustice.
Eight artists deliver the same message through their distinct installments in this exhibition: a one-dimensional approach to consider women’s reproductive rights cannot translate the stigma of black women from Sims’ remarkable discovery, resignation, and frustration of aborting a child due to their socioeconomic status, and pleasure from pregnancy. Women’s rights and their stigma from gender inequality have been historically undervalued, and many governments around the world still limit access to reproductive healthcare, which eventually leads to lethal consequences to both physical and mental health. As members of society, we should strive to create space to empower women’s reproductive rights and find the meaning of what it means to be ‘reproductive.’
Doreen Garner, Betsey’s Flag, 2019, Museum of Contemporary Photography website