Carolin
Schurr

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Carolin Schurr is professor of Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. She is the principal investigator of the SNSF project "Reproductive Geopolitics" project. MORE

Laura
Perler

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Laura Perler is a postdoctoral researcher in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. In her research she investigates inequalities in relation to reproductive technologies and the Swiss asylum system.  MORE

Nora
Komposch

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Nora Komposch is a PhD student and assistant in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. She researches about migrant workers in Spain's strawberry industry. MORE

Mirko
Winkel

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Mirko Winkel is the coordinator of the mLAB. The artist and curator teaches at the University of Bern and other places with the aim of synthesizing art with scientific research and socio-political concerns.

Yolinliztli
Pérez-Hernández

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Yolinliztli Pérez-Hernández is a PostDoc in Social and Cultural Geography. She researches the experiences of sterilization (tubal ligation and hysterectomy) of low-income, rural, peasant, and indigenous Mexican women as part of national family planning and global birth control policies in developing countries. MORE  

Milena
Wegelin

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Milena Wegelin is a social anthropologist and research associate at the Department of Perinatal and Maternal Health of the Bern University of Applied Sciences. Sie is collaborating with Laura Perler in her subproject “Governing and Contesting In/fertility within the Swiss Asylum Context”

Susanne
Schultz

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Susanne Schultz is lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the Goethe University Frankfurt a.M. She is a visiting researcher who collaborates with the team of the project „Reproductive Geopolitics“ with a SNSF Scientific Exchange Grant in 2023. MORE

Veronika
Siegl

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Veronika Siegl, holding a PostDoctoral position in Social and Cultural Geography, is a social anthropologist and gender researcher. Her research focuses on ethics, inequality and self-determination in the context of reproductive medicine.   MORE

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Exhibition: Making Babies in Bern

An exhibition on egg donation and reproductive politics based on the research of Laura Perler, with photographs by Tamara Sánchez Pérez. Curator: Mirko Winkel.

When: November 25th, 2022 – January 14th, 2023

Where: Kornhausforum (Gallery 2nd floor), Kornhausplatz 18, 3011 Bern

Opening hours: Tue–Fri 10 am–7 pm, Sat 10 am–5 pm, Sun 11 am–4 pm, Monday closed

More information: HERE

Free admission

Opening: Thursday, November 24th, 2022

5 pm: Panel discussion.

After a short lecture on egg donation and the Spanish reproductive market by Taleo Stüwe (physician, collaborator Gen-ethisches Netzwerk e.V., Berlin), a panel discussion will take place, moderated by Carolin Schurr (GIUB). Laura Perler, Tamara Sánchez Pérez (photographer), Alba Cambeiro Cernadas (egg donor portrayed in the exhibition) and Sabina Rhyner (egg recipient portrayed in the exhibition) will discuss egg donation in Spain. The event will be held in German and Spanish, with simultaneous translation and is a collaboration with the association biorespect.

6 pm: Opening with apéro

 

 

(Still) prohibited in Switzerland, permitted in other countries: egg donation. The exhibition “Making Babies? Egg Donation and Reproductive Politics” explores this reproductive technique and its social, ethical and economic implications. It features photographs, audio and video documents on the subject, created as part of Laura Perler’s research. It is accompanied by a workshop and discussion program that seeks feminist answers to pressing questions.
 

The exhibition portrays the lives and motivations of egg donors from Spain and visits laboratories and surgery rooms at a reproductive clinic. Spain is a leader in Europe in assisted reproduction in general and in egg donation in particular. People with an unfulfilled desire to have children also travel there from Switzerland to become pregnant via egg donation. In the exhibition, visitors get to know one such recipient, as well as a young woman who was born through egg donation. The political discussion on the issue of legalization is highly topical: just recently, in September 2022, the Swiss Council of States approved to consider the legalization of egg donation in Switzerland. Accordingly, the topic is also being discussed in the media, such as in a Swiss radio program that mentions the exhibition.

 
The exhibition was sponsored by the Swiss National Science Foundation, University of Bern, and Branco Weiss Fellowship.