September 28, 2024–February 2, 2025

Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency features work by contemporary artists Laia Abril, Candice Breitz, Elinor Carucci, Jess T. Dugan, Krista Franklin, Candy Guinea, KING COBRA, Joanne Leonard, Wangechi Mutu, and Carmen Winant. This exhibition explores the psychological, physical, and emotional realities encountered by women and people assigned female at birth in the years leading up to, during, and after fertility. The artists featured consider a range of topics including birth, miscarriage, pleasure, lack of access to abortion, trauma, and the loss of fertility. The exhibition’s title, Reproductive, refers to both the act of copying something, like a photograph, and the biological creation of offspring. The active tense of the verb “to reproduce” points to the capacity that these artists are at once demonstrating and demanding: agency.

Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency is a traveling exhibition organized by Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) at Columbia College, Chicago. This iteration 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. The presentation at the Loeb is overseen by curator of photography Jessica D. Brier and made possible through the Friends of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Exhibition Fund.

Please note: Before choosing to engage with this exhibition, please know that it includes references to and imagery related to menstruation, fertility, pregnancy loss, abortion, birth, and sexuality. Some of the art on view engages with the history of the gynecological profession and experiences of racial violence.

Related Events

Artist Talk with Jess T. Dugan
Jan. 23, 2025, 5:30 p.m. in Taylor 203

Jess T. Dugan is a renowned photographer whose captivating family portrait, Self-portrait with Vanessa and Elinor (2 days old), is a highlight of Reproductive: Health, Fertility, Agency. Their work is informed by their own life experiences, including their identity as a queer and nonbinary person, and reflects a deep belief in the importance of representation and the transformative power of storytelling.

Digital Pathways to Reproductive Justice 
Oct. 24, 2024, Roundtable Discussion begins at 5:30 p.m.

Explore technology's impact on reproductive rights in this conversation with Kiana Tipton from Chat with Charley and Aisha Becker-Burrowes from FEMINIST.

Exhibition Opening and Conversation
Oct. 3, 2024, Reception begins 4:00 p.m.; Conversation at 5:30 p.m. in Taylor 102

Artists Krista Franklin and Joanne Leonard will be in conversation with exhibition curators Karen Irvine and Kristin Taylor.