"Menstrual cups, birth control pill packs, IUDs, pessaries, nursing bras, baby bottles, strollers, and snot suckers are among the items that take the spotlight in Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births. These and other objects that support reproductive health and childrearing, displayed on the walls and vitrines at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), may be familiar to you."
"They might even be tucked in your medicine cabinet, underwear drawer, or bag right now, or entangled with memories from your childhood or stories from your parents or grandparents. Every consumer product, societal system, and architectural space in the full-floor exhibition - featuring more than 250 examples spanning the past 150 years or so - illuminates how design shapes diverse experiences of parenthood, from navigating fertility and conception to pregnancy, birth, and postpartum life."
A full-floor exhibition displays more than 250 objects across roughly 150 years that shape reproductive health and childrearing. Objects include menstrual cups, birth control packs, IUDs, pessaries, nursing bras, baby bottles, strollers, and snot suckers. The traveling exhibition began in 2021 and connects to a broader Designing Motherhood project with a book, curriculum, portrait series, partnerships, and an Instagram origin. Each venue refreshes the show to reflect local collections and culture, with new sections such as product design for urban parents and displays that address labor, birth, and postpartum care.
Read at Hyperallergic
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