The Artificial Womb: Speculative Design Meets the Sociotechnical History of Reproductive Labor

Abstract

received a €2.9 million grant from the EU-program Horizon 2020 to develop an artificial womb. By 2025, they will in all likelihood have developed a prototype. Announcing its development, an image of an artificial womb prototype went viral in more than 3 million online search results. The image of the prototype was taken during the acclaimed Dutch Design Week in 2018, where it was first presented as design-for-debate by Professor Guid Oei of the Máxima Medical Centre. Hendrik-Jan Grievink and Lisa Mandemaker, designers affiliated with the Dutch Amsterdam-based studio Next Nature Network, designed the prototype in collaboration with the Eindhoven team.Next Nature Network also worked together with the team in Eindhoven to organize a design-fiction exhibition titled Reprodutopia (2019). The