People
Juliana Rowen Barton, PhD is a historian and curator whose research centers on the intersections of race, gender, and design. Through her work, she strives to make a more equitable museum experience and to reframe perspectives on familiar objects and spaces. She has worked on exhibitions and programming at the Center for Craft, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Center for Architecture, and Museum of Modern Art. See more here.
Hailing from Scotland, Michelle Millar Fisher has worked as an educator, curator, and historian in universities and museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, and the MFA Boston where she is currently the Wornick Curator of Contemporary Decorative Arts. Her work focuses on the intersections of people, power, design, and craft. She has co-authored many books, essays, and exhibitions including Design and Violence and Items: Is Fashion Modern? See more here.
Zoë Greggs is a queer, Black, disabled Philadelphia-based artist and non-profit administrator who serves as the Community Outreach Coordinator at Maternity Care Coalition (MCC). Before joining MCC, she held positions at Philadelphia’s African American Museum, the Smith Memorial Playground, and the Magic Gardens. She holds a BFA from the University of the Arts with a concentration in printmaking and book arts. In 2020, she participated in ArtWell’s Women of Equity fellowship program that champions the power of women identifying people of color as change agents to tackle institutional race and gender bias in their organizations and beyond. Greggs is also the Curatorial Assistant for Designing Motherhood, where she brings her expertise of community engagement, project management, and art history. In addition, she co-leads the Designing Motherhood Storybanking Initiative, which utilizes the power of storytelling to advocate for a future where caregivers can birth with dignity, parent with autonomy, and raise babies who are healthy, growing, and thriving. Through her passion for Black feminism, critical race theory, and systems change, she strives to create processes and joyful relationships that uproot systemic harm and shift mainstream narratives about our shared history and trajectory.
Amber Winick is a mother and design historian. She holds an MA in Design History, Decorative Arts, and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center (BGC), and a BA in child development and anthropology from Sarah Lawrence College. She has received two Fulbrights, and has lived and researched maternal and child-related designs, policies, and practices around the world. She has expertise in the designed systems, environments, and objects that empower (and disempower) us, particularly around birth, family leave, caregiving, schools, and early childhood. See more here.
Advisors
The Designing Motherhood advisory team comprises five Maternity Care Coalition staff with deep on-the-ground expertise in culturally-appropriate care work, maternal health, policy advocacy, and early childhood development: reproductive justice advocate, birth worker and program associate for MCC’s community doula and breastfeeding programs, Tekara Gainey; early childhood education expert and author Sabrina Taylor; doula and lactation specialist Porsche M. Holland; associate director of policy and urban planner Gabriella Nelson; and culturally appropriate care specialist Adrianne Edwards.
Collaborators
Maternity Care Coalition
Since 1980, Maternity Care Coalition has assisted families throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania, focusing particularly on neighborhoods with high rates of poverty, infant mortality, health disparities, and changing immigration patterns. They know a family’s needs change as they go through the pregnancy and their child’s first years and they offer a range of services and programs for every step along the way. MCC envisions an equitable future where all families are healthy and connected, with all children thriving and ready to learn.
Neighborhood Birth Center
In Boston, the project’s thought partner was the Neighborhood Birth Center (NBC) which will open as Boston’s first independent and freestanding birth center in 2024 with the vision of improving birth experiences and outcomes, across communities, for generations.
Center for Architecture and Design
The Center provides Philadelphia with educational programs, exhibitions, and a public forum to explore architecture, urban planning, and design, allowing visitors the opportunity to understand how these disciplines affect us all in our daily lives.
Mütter Museum
America’s finest museum of medical history, the Mütter Museum helps the public understand the mysteries and beauty of the human body and to appreciate the history of diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Orkan Telhan and Penn Design
Orkan Telhan is an interdisciplinary artist, designer and researcher. Telhan is Associate Professor of Fine Arts, Emerging Design Practices in the School of Design at The University of Pennsylvania.
Romy St. Hilaire
Romy St. Hilaire is an arts and non profit consultant who previously served as the STEAM Team Program Coordinator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Romy is the founder of Art in the Antilles which supports Afro-Caribbean communities to equitably navigate the creative economy. She is currently a Masters candidate in the City Planning program at MIT focusing on International Development.