Hosted by Boston Center for the Arts

The first speakers in this series bring different perspectives to the current status of reproductive rights. Malkit Shoshan researches how the control of women’s bodies intersects with efforts at regulating and exploiting nature. She will discuss her recent exhibition at Harvard Graduate School of Design, Love in a Mist, which demonstrated how the fight for reproductive health is intertwined with environmental concerns. Judy Norsigian is a cofounder of Our Bodies Ourselves, a collective that started in Boston in 1969 and which published the seminal text on women’s bodies and health. Today, OBOS advocates on behalf of women for improved healthcare around the world. Norsigian offers the viewpoint of one who has been on the frontlines of the fight for better reproductive health for fifty years.

SPEAKERS

JUDY NORSIGIAN
is a co-founder of Our Bodies Ourselves who served as executive director of the organization from 2001 to 2015. She is currently chair of the OBOS board of directors. An internationally renowned speaker and author on a range of women’s health concerns, her areas of focus include women and health care reform, abortion and contraception, childbirth (especially the role of midwifery), genetics and reproductive technologies, and drug and device safety.

MALKIT SHOSHAN
is the founding director of the architectural think-tank FAST: Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory. FAST uses research, advocacy, and design to investigate the relationships between architecture, urban planning, and human rights in conflict-affected areas. In 2016, Shoshan was the curator of the Dutch Pavilion for The Venice Architecture Biennale with the exhibition BLUE: Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions, which examines the spatiality and legacy of UN Peace Operations in conflict-affected urban environments. She is currently Area Head of the Art, Design, and the Public Domain Master in Design Studies at Harvard GSD and a visiting scholar at the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU. Shoshan’s exhibition Love in a Mist, at Harvard Graduate School of Design, illustrated the unexpected connections between efforts to control women and nature, such as the use of synthetic hormones on both women and livestock.