The Book of the Month is Designing Motherhood written by @michellemillarfisher and @amberwinick , a smart, design-driven exploration of over 80 objects that have shaped the way we experience reproduction, from pregnancy tests to baby carriers. The project started as an Instagram account, and is now a book and exhibition @madmuseum . We encourage you to discover how design, culture, and care intersect in the journey of motherhood. Available at The Store at MAD online and in store. • • • #designingmotherhood #motherhood #bookrecs #bookreviews #bookofthemonth #motherhoodbooks #booktok #museumstore #museumofartsanddesign #nycmuseums

Well, that was fun! NY friends go see the amazing new @designingmotherhood exhibition at @madmuseum . Big thanks to all the wonderful artists and curators, thinkers and midwives who had a hand in this. It was a gorgeous celebration and the exhibition will be up through March.

I do believe my prom date (Amber) wore it better

It’s official: London is our kinda town

RIP my beloved Norma Kamali oversized shirt/dress, which my mother bought at Bloomingdales in Miami Beach and wore in the 80s with a perm and heels, I wore in the late 90s and early 2000s with a chunky belt and platforms all through NYC, paired with bikinis to many a beach, and then again with three big pregnant bellies. You were perfect and I loved you to shreds. 🤍

Still napping after all these years

You’ve seen this object before, haven’t you? It’s a Pikler Triangle and they seem to be everywhere these days. (Yup, I’ve got one too—I use it in my weekly playgroup). But what’s the intention behind the design? Who designed it and how did it come to be in the world? And how do we grapple with things like our children’s development, caregiving, agency, risk, embodied confidence and the marketing of stuff (mostly proliferated on Instagram without context)? I had the pleasure of writing a short and sweet piece in Issue #4 of @mother_tongue_magazine on Emmi Pikler’s most iconic design. I love that I was able to include an archival photograph of a child from Lóczy, an orphanage and child development center that Pikler founded in Budapest the wake of WWII, and where she workshopped her designs and theories. So grateful to the editors and designers at @mother_tongue_magazine who take as much pleasure in a juicy design story as I do! I absolutely love how this came together. 💓

After many rejections, there was a moment when we thought we’d just make a self published photocopy of @designingmotherhood and hand it out to anyone who might be even remotely interested. We believed in the idea, and yet, no one in any position of power was able to see what we knew in our hearts was a fascinating and necessary conversation. Fast forward to last night, where our exhibition opened at THE GATES FOUNDATION. 💥💥💥 It was a surreal and incredible feeling to see our ideas translated with such care and thoughtfulness. And over 500 people RSVPed to see it on opening night. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. So much love for our team of five— @michellemillarfisher @julianabarton @graceful_savagery @sweetwatertaffy and for the incredibly talented team at @discovergates including @sarahteebloom @paquita.was.here and so many others. Oh yeah and amazing designer @frantaloupe and our stellar advisor @angelagarbes both of whom I’ve been fan girling for ages. Knock me over with a feather already. Heart full. ❤️🪶

"Children begin to walk to chase desires no one will fulfill for them: the desire for that which is out of reach, for freedom, for independence from the secure confines of the maternal Eden. And so walking begins as a delayed falling, and the fall meets with the Fall." ~Rebecca Solnit

🥹🥹🥹Designing Motherhood all grown up and at the Gates Foundation. Still doesn’t quite feel real! 💥💥💥 Posted @withregram • @designingmotherhood OH HI, SEATTLE ❣️❣️ We couldn't be more excited to have the DM exhibition come to the west coast -- it's opening on February 16 at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Discovery Center (@discovergates ). We are incredibly grateful to the whole team at Gates, and perhaps most especially the curator, Sarah Bloom (@sarahteebloom ) who took a chance on the DM so when she saw it very early on in its life, as well as Deborah K, Jill, Paquita, Cara, Deborah S, and Charlotte and the Studio Matthews design team. In Seattle, the project thought partners are the Designing Motherhood advisory committee: Amie Bishop (@amiebishop ), Senior Research Advisor for OutRight Action International; Angela Garbes (@angelagarbes ) Seattle-based writer and author of Like A Mother (2018); Ari Robbins Greene, proud dad to two children; Dr. Cyril Engmann, Senior Director of Quality and Program Impact and Institutional Official at PATH; Dila Perera, Executive Director at Open Arms Perinatal Services (@openarmsperinatalservices ); Mercedes Snyder, owner of Something Beautiful Midwifery (@somethingbeautifulmidwifery ); and Rebecca Mauldin, Director of Communications & Development at ChildStrive. Let us know if you are in Seattle the evening of Wednesday, February 15 and want to come see the show, the whole DM team will be there and we'd love to say hi ❣️ The exhibition is up for around a year and it's always free -- spread the word and come see :)

This one’s definitely worth saving—Designing Motherhood just made a list of Best Designs of 2022 in @guardian !! So much gratitude for all the hearts and brilliant minds that made this project such a success. 💙💙💙💙💙 Posted @withrepost • @department_pr ✨@designingmotherhood featured in the @guardian as one of the best designs of 2022 by #palomagormley of @material_cultures ✨ "A long-overdue, taboo-busting project that kickstarts some much-needed conversations about the impact design and material culture continue to have on the lived reality of motherhood." #designingmotherhood #ourbodiesourselves #feminist #motherhood #design #materialculture #designhistory

Just bumped into these photos of me nursing Cosima while writing Designing Motherhood in early 2020. What a wild ride it’s been from conception to book baby, now (impossibly) one year old, available to sit on your lap and mine. 💗 Here’s to impossible projects, collaborations, feeding the ones you love and getting it done ✔️