Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency
Saturday, September 28, 2024 - Sunday, February 2, 2025
The female body has long been a site of injustice, and throughout history issues relating to the reproductive health of women and people assigned female at birth (AFAB) have been shrouded in shame and hobbled by bad science and discrimination. From the fraught history of birth control, to the inequities surrounding care for women of color, to the struggles of non-cis individuals trying to conceive, and the near silence in our culture surrounding miscarriage, menstruation, and menopause, fertility has been either overtly politicized or rendered invisible for too long.
The artists in this exhibition explore the psychological, physical, and emotional realities women and AFAB people experience surrounding fertility. Fearlessly tackling topics such as pleasure, pregnancy, trauma, infertility, and abortion, these artists also shed stark light on the patriarchal systems of oppression that inhibit reproductive justice. The exhibition’s title, Reproductive, refers to both the act of copying something, like a photograph, and the biological creation of offspring. Additionally, the active tense of the verb “to reproduce” points to the capacity that these artists are at once demonstrating and demanding: agency.
Though this exhibition is not a comprehensive look at the many issues surrounding reproductive health, each of the artists addresses key topics in the larger history of discrimination against female bodies, creating space for themselves—and for others—to claim their power and revolutionizing the prevailing sense of what it means for a woman to be (re)productive.
"Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency" is a traveling exhibition organized by Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) at Columbia College Chicago. This presentation of the exhibition is unique to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College. The exhibition is organized by MoCP chief curator and deputy director Karen Irvine and curator of academic programs and collections Kristin Taylor; its presentation at the Loeb is overseen by curator of photography Jessica D. Brier, and is made possible through the Friends of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Exhibition Fund.
The artists in this exhibition explore the psychological, physical, and emotional realities women and AFAB people experience surrounding fertility. Fearlessly tackling topics such as pleasure, pregnancy, trauma, infertility, and abortion, these artists also shed stark light on the patriarchal systems of oppression that inhibit reproductive justice. The exhibition’s title, Reproductive, refers to both the act of copying something, like a photograph, and the biological creation of offspring. Additionally, the active tense of the verb “to reproduce” points to the capacity that these artists are at once demonstrating and demanding: agency.
Though this exhibition is not a comprehensive look at the many issues surrounding reproductive health, each of the artists addresses key topics in the larger history of discrimination against female bodies, creating space for themselves—and for others—to claim their power and revolutionizing the prevailing sense of what it means for a woman to be (re)productive.
"Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency" is a traveling exhibition organized by Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) at Columbia College Chicago. This presentation of the exhibition is unique to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College. The exhibition is organized by MoCP chief curator and deputy director Karen Irvine and curator of academic programs and collections Kristin Taylor; its presentation at the Loeb is overseen by curator of photography Jessica D. Brier, and is made possible through the Friends of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Exhibition Fund.
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