BIOTECH & MENSTRUAL BLOOD

IMARA is a modified (DIY) bioprinter that fabricates adaptive, multi-species organs through hybrid anatomical structures and DIY bioinks. Imagining a speculative future of bodily repair, it reconfigures biofabrication as a process of care, maintenance, and ongoing negotiation between bodies, machines, and vital matter. At once a real-world bioengineering tool and a feminist future imaginary, IMARA operates between material practice and speculative worldbuilding.

This project investigates the production of lab-grown clitorises through 3D bioprinting with stem cells derived from menstrual fluid. The project integrates laboratory research with video and sculptural forms to challenge male-dominated narratives in biotechnology and reframe pleasure beyond reproductive function. Sentient Clit further engages economies of sexualized consumption through its use of digital platforms like OnlyFans. By interrogating the ethics of sentience, consent, and embodiment in bioengineering, it advances a technofeminist approach.

Z-stack and Period Brain are two interrelated works that engage cellular imaging through microscopy techniques in which multiple focal planes are layered to produce time lapse sequences. Neuronal differentiation of menstrual cells takes place through successive slices, assembling cell transformation and visual depth from discrete strata. What appears continuous is revealed as multiple temporal and material layers.

From Cup to Dish stems from a direct invitation to collaborate with scientists at a Montreal-based bioengineering research laboratory, to undertake a focused investigation into 3D bioprinting. Working with a high-end CELLINK bioprinter, WhiteFeather developed prototypes of menstrual cups as anatomical scaffolds for the cultivation of her own menstrual stem cells. This research opened a new line of inquiry into the symbolic and biological potential of menstrual architectures.

The Witch in the Lab Coat is a doctoral research-creation project and scientific investigation that explores the intersection of feminist witchcraft and tissue engineering through the development of a body-based, performance-informed laboratory practice. A core sub-project, Mooncalf, is an original research trajectory that investigates the development of menstrual serum for tissue culture, alongside methods for isolating stem cells from her own menstrual fluid. 

Blood Magic in Biotech investigates the vaginal microbiome through processes of 16S rRNA genomic extraction, data analysis, and embodied laboratory practice. Working across domestic and institutional laboratory environments, the artist positions her body as subject and site of inquiry, generating microbiome data through daily self-sampling across a full menstrual cycle. The project examines the microbial communities of the vaginal ecosystem while interrogating the epistemological frameworks through which such data is produced and interpreted. By reintroducing subjectivity into these systems, the project challenges the notion of biological data as neutral or objective.