FSJ Speaks to the Curators of Designing Motherhood

Designing Motherhood is a multi-faceted design history project about how 20th-century design has impacted the modern experience of reproduction, birth, and childrearing. The team behind it have been sharing their research process on Instagram (@designingmotherhood) and will soon open an exhibition at Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum (including work by Aimee Gilmore, who contributed to this issue!) and the Center for Architecture and Design in partnership with the Maternity Care Coalition. The corresponding book will be published in September from MIT Press. 

We (FSJ editors Lauren Downing Peters and Laura Snelgrove) met with curators Amber Winick, Juliana Rowen Barton, and Michelle Millar Fisher (integral team member Zoë Greggs wasn’t able to join us) on January 21, 2021 and recorded our conversation. We asked about their process, research discoveries, and style of teamwork, as well as their thoughts on the designed objects and systems affecting motherhood today.