In conjunction with Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births, MAD presents a virtual conversation featuring Meegan Daigler, Aphra Hallam, and Martha Poggioli, three artists and designers whose work engages with products from across the spectrum of reproductive health. During the hour-long program, the trio will share brief presentations about their work before joining a conversation moderated by the exhibition’s co-curator Elizabeth Koehn, with time allotted for audience questions. Discussion topics will include changes in the approach to designs for reproductive health from the 19th century to the present, the role of prototypes in the development of a successful design, speculative design as a tool for arriving at solutions, and hopes for what’s next on the frontier for designs relating to reproductive health.

The webinar link will be shared 2 days prior to the event via email.

About the speakers

Meegan Daigler is the co-founder and CTO of Reia, a women's health company focused on improving the treatment experience for pelvic organ prolapse. Reia offers a new pessary which collapses for easy and comfortable insertion and removal, enabling women’s autonomy in their treatment. Prior to Reia, Meegan worked as a product design engineer, designing many household products, from coffee makers to tampon applicators.

Aphra Hallam is a London-based experiential designer and founder with a background in luxury fashion and beauty. She began her career as a visual designer at Chanel, where she developed a strong foundation in spatial storytelling and elevated brand experiences. She now works at Seen Group, designing immersive pop-ups, events, and culturally relevant moments that connect beauty brands with audiences across the world.

She is also the founder of Zera, a cooling device designed to combat menopausal hot flashes, developed for her final year major project at university. Zera explores a discreet and design-led solution to help combat symptoms of the menopause, with a focus on empowering women. The project also highlights racial disparities in reproductive aging, encouraging more inclusive conversations and innovation within women’s health.

Martha Poggioli is an Australian artist and designer living in the United States. Her practice investigates trajectories of industrial production, material culture, and bio-technological experience through sculpture, installation, and new media. Alongside traditional studio methods, Poggioli incorporates design, hacker strategies, and research-based approaches to develop long-form projects centered on material, cultural, and social inquiry.

Poggioli’s current research examines modes of transmission across technology, time ,and media. Recent work has focused on the histories of reproductive technologies, particularly the development, patenting, and production of contraceptive devices. Several years spent developing minimally invasive surgical technologies have informed projects that explore the relationship between embodied experience and representations of biological interiority.