Project News Archive (2018-2020)
Workshop Three in Tweets
February 11, 2020
Following our packed workshop at University of Stirling over the weekend we’ve collected a thread of tweets from the two-day event, which can be viewed here. Thank you to all our speakers, helpers and participants for a productive and exciting two days.
Prof Kate Sang & colleagues highlight impact of in-work poverty on menstruation
February 6, 2020
MRN founding member Professor Kate Sang, along with colleagues Katriona Myhill and Jen Remnant, have recently written a blog post entitled ‘Period Poverty is a Workplace Issue’ for the Period Poverty Scotland campaign launched by Scottish Labour MSP Monica Lennon. You can read the blog post here and find out more about Period Poverty Scotland here.
Prof Bettina Bildhauer & Chella Quint on BBC Radio Scotland
February 6, 2020
On Sunday 2nd February, MRN founding member Professor Bettina Bildhauer was interviewed along with Chella Quint by Connie McLaughlin for BBC Radio Scotland. They discussed the current “let’s call periods, periods” campaign in Scotland, reasons for embarrassment and shame, and different ways to think about menstruation.
The episode of Sunday Morning is available on BBC iPlayer. [no longer available]
Bee Hughes to give talk at University of St Andrews
January 27, 2020
Bee will give a talk as part of their role as Artist in Residence at University of St Andrews on Wednesday 29th January.
Bee is an artist, PhD researcher and lecturer working across the fields of arts practice, art history, media and cultural studies and sociology. In this presentation they will discuss the development of their recent art practice which has seen them shift from traditional printmaking rooted in Graphic Arts, towards performance and body-oriented practices. Bee will discuss key themes and methods used in their work, such as autobiography, gender, performativity, permutation, collaboration and curation, illustrated through the body of work produced as part of their PhD project.
The talk is linked to The Blood Lines project hosted by the St Andrews Centre for Contemporary Art, the St Andrews Institute for Gender Studies, and supported by a Gender, Diversity and Equality grant.
Bee Hughes: Cover Art for Oxford Art Journal
January 27, 2020
Lifetime Supply (2017-2019) by network founding member, Bee Hughes, was featured on the cover of the December 2019 issue of Oxford Art Journal, and alongside other menstrual art in Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik’s article ‘Blood Works: Judy Chicago and Menstrual Art Since 1970’.
The cover of Oxford Art Journal 42(3) (December 2019) featuring Bee Hughes’ Lifetime Supply (2017-2019).
New Publications from Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik
January 27, 2020
In December 2019 we saw the publication of two research articles by MRN founding member and Principal Investigator Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik. These articles provide much needed historical and analytical interventions into the history of sanitary waste disposal bins, and the impact and legacy of Judy Chicago’s menstrual artworks, produced in the 1970s. The article ‘‘Do not flush feminine products!’ The environmental history, biohazards and norms contained in the UK sanitary bin industry 1960-2020’ was published in Environment & History, and ‘Blood works: Judy Chicago and menstrual art since 1970’ was published in Oxford Art Journal.
Keynote Speakers
December 18, 2019
We are delighted to announce Dr Georgia Bruinvels and Dr Emma Ross as our keynote speakers for our third Wellcome Trust funded workshop, ‘Go with the Flow: Understanding how menstrual health interacts with sport and physical activity’, which will take place in Sterling on 7th – 8th February 2020.
Dr Georgia Bruinvels is a Research Associate at St Mary’s University, a Research Scientist for the sport science consultancy firm Orreco and an elite endurance athlete. Her research focuses on how hormonal fluctuations throughout the menstrual cycle impact athlete training and performance. Her clients include the USA women’s soccer/football team. Dr Bruinvels provided key consultancy on menstrual health for the team’s triumphant campaign to win the 2019 Football World Cup. She has also worked at the UK Anti-Doping office.
Dr Bruinvels was named to the list of Sport Women of the Year 2019 by the Telegraph. Her article in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, “Sport exercise and the menstrual cycle: where is the research?” (Bruinvels, et. al, 2017) is a seminal work on menstruation and sport.
At the workshop, Dr Bruinvels will share her research insights and discuss practical applications of menstrual health research in sport.
Dr Emma Ross is the Head of Physiology at the English Institute of Sport (EIS). She serves as the lead on the Female Athlete Health team at EIS. This year, she led the launch of the SmartHER campaign, a programme designed to support athletes, coaches and sport managers in understanding menstrual health and broader issues of women’s health. For this campaign, Dr Ross leads workshops, helps design educational material and conducts research on women’s health and athlete training, performance and well-being. Prior to her work at EIS, Dr Ross was a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Physiology at the University of Brighton. She also lectured at Brunel University, after earning her PhD in Neurophysiology there in 2005. She has published numerous academic articles on exercise physiology and sport science.
New Blog for The Polyphony
November 22, 2019
Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik recently published a new blog post with Alexandra Stephenson, an undergraduate in Art History at the University of St Andrews, and co-founder of Capture Collective. Their article examines the archives and collection of Surgeons’ Hall Museum in Edinburgh, considering what ‘visual and historical data’ in the collection might reveal ‘in our search to track menstruation in the twentieth-century’. The article is well-illustrated with fascinating images from the collection, as Camilla and Alexandra ‘argue that the history of surgery might provide a different angle on menstruation’. You can read the post – ‘Pickled Menstruation’ – here.
New Collaboration: Blood Lines: Exploring the History of Menstruation at the University of St Andrews
October 15, 2019
MRN founding members Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik and Bee Hughes – in collaboration with Dr Catherine Spencer – have been awarded funding by the University of St Andrews’ Gender, Diversity and Inclusion Research Fund to embark upon a year-long project entitled ‘Blood Lines: Exploring the History of Menstruation at the University of St Andrews’.
Hughes will visit St Andrews three times as an Artist-In-Residence at the Centre for Contemporary Art in the School of Art History and in the St Andrews Institute of Gender Studies, and, together with Røstvik and Spencer, explore various aspects of menstrual history in St Andrews at a time when Scotland is leading the world on menstrual policies via its Period Poverty initiative. The project will engage with a number of organisations and groups within and outside the University of St Andrews.
The project aims to produce an Open Access report on menstrual equity support and work in St Andrews, one commissioned public artwork by Hughes to be exhibited in the town in September 2020, and one academic journal article.
We will provide further information on this project as it progresses.
New Collaboration: Blood Lines: Exploring the History of Menstruation at the University of St Andrews
October 15, 2019
MRN founding members Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik and Bee Hughes – in collaboration with Dr Catherine Spencer – have been awarded funding by the University of St Andrews’ Gender, Diversity and Inclusion Research Fund to embark upon a year-long project entitled ‘Blood Lines: Exploring the History of Menstruation at the University of St Andrews’.
Hughes will visit St Andrews three times as an Artist-In-Residence at the Centre for Contemporary Art in the School of Art History and in the St Andrews Institute of Gender Studies, and, together with Røstvik and Spencer, explore various aspects of menstrual history in St Andrews at a time when Scotland is leading the world on menstrual policies via its Period Poverty initiative. The project will engage with a number of organisations and groups within and outside the University of St Andrews.
The project aims to produce an Open Access report on menstrual equity support and work in St Andrews, one commissioned public artwork by Hughes to be exhibited in the town in September 2020, and one academic journal article.
We will provide further information on this project as it progresses.
Menstruation Research Network at Period Poverty Taskforce
October 15, 2019
Founding Members of Menstruation Research Network are participating in the UK Government’s Period Poverty Taskforce. MRN members are engaging with different facets of the taskforce workstreams, which cover Access, Stigma and Education, and Research. On Monday 28th October, several MRN founding members will participate in an initial research workshop as part of of the taskforce’s Research workstream, which is led by Irise International and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
November 14th Workshop: Keynote Announcement
September 11, 2019
We are delighted to confirm Prof. Joanne Duberley, University of Birmingham as the keynote speaker for our upcoming workshop, to be held on 14th November 2019 at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. Prof. Duberley’s presentation is entitled ‘The menopause taboo and work: The impact of menopause on the working lives of women in the police force’.
Prof. Duberley is Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor (Equality) and Professor of Organisation Studies at the University of Birmingham. Over the last twenty years she has developed research examining the impact of gender, ethnicity, social class and age on careers in a variety of contexts including defence, professional service organisations and the police in the UK. She co-directs the Work Inclusivity Research Centre at Birmingham with Dr Holly Birkett.
MRN meet with Heavy Bleeding Team
September 10, 2019
In August, MRN members met with the Heavy Bleeding Team at the Medical Research Council Centre for Reproductive Health, University of Edinburgh to discuss potential collaboration.
Her Blood is Gold published in Brazil
September 4, 2019
Seu Sangue é Ouro, a new Portuguese edition of Lara Owen’s updated English language edition of Her Blood is Gold (2008) was published in Brazil in July 2019. For more information please see Lara’s website.
Recent media engagements
September 4, 2019
Members of Menstruation Research Network have been approached by a number of media organisations for comment on issues surrounding menstruation. Here’s a round-up of some of our recent media engagements: Lara Owen was quoted in an article in the Financial Times, ‘How to Make your Menstrual Cycle Work for You’ in May, and again in The Times this August, in an extract of broadcaster Emma Barnett’s book, Period. Lara was also interviewed on ABC Radio Adelaide’s Breakfast show on 27th August 2019, where she spoke about the disposable menstrual product industry (listen to Lara’s contribution from around 2 hours in).
In May, Bee Hughes provided an academic perspective alongside Liverpool based activists contributing to an article in the Liverpool Echo on the work being done around menstruation and homelessness in the city.
Uncovered exhibition
July 24, 2019
Bee Hughes was invited to exhibit the artwork created as part of her practice-led PhD research at an exhibition curated by MA Exhibition Studies student Aisling Harrison. Uncovered, an exhibition exploring the vulva and vagina in contemporary art took place at MAKE North Dock in Liverpool, 23 – 26 July 2019.truation and homelessness in the city.
Menstruation Research Network / The Polyphony
July 3, 2019
Our founding members were invited to contribute some reflections on the first of our network conference / workshop days, Critical Perspectives on Menstruation, held on 31st May 2019 at the University of St Andrews, for the academic blog The Polyphony. The blog is hosted by the Institute for Medical Humanities at Durham University, and aims to stimulate conversations in the critical medical humanities, and inter-linked disciplines. We would like to thank the editors for their invitation to contribute and for publishing this introduction to our network.
Network Members participate in British Academy Summer Showcase
June 23, 2019
Bee Hughes & Dr Kay Standing were among fifteen research exhibits featured at the British Academy Summer Showcase held at the British Academy in London on 20-22 June 2019. Their exhibit, ‘How can we challenge cultural attitudes about periods?’ presented aspects of Kay’s collaborative (British Academy funded) research in Nepal, and Bee’s research in the visual cultures of menstruation. Bee also led a hands-on craft workshop over the course of the event, creating activist badges from paper with visitors of all ages.
Menstruation Research at Liverpool Light Night
May 19, 2019
On Friday 17th May, menstrual research, art and activism were brought to Liverpool’s regular late-night arts festival, Light Night. Curated by Bee Hughes in collaboration with Dr Kay Standing and Dr Sara Parker, the Blood Rituals event shared a range of research and expertise from the UK and Nepal including Kay and Sara’s British Academy funded Dignity Without Danger project. The researchers were also joined the volunteers from Period Project Merseyside who led a craft event where visitors to the exhibition added their work to an ongoing collaborative artwork. The exhibition featured artworks from Bee Hughes, archival materials from the Femorabilia Collection at LJMU Special Collections and Archives, alongside Poloumi Basu’s VR artwork, A Ritual of Exile, which immerses the viewer in different women’s experiences of menstruation in Nepal.
Menopause Cafe
May 5, 2019
Network member Abby Fraser hosted a Menopause Cafe event on May 3rd in Milngavie, near Glasgow in May. Further information about menopause cafes can be found here.
Bee Hughes & Kay Standing Receive LJMU SU Award
March 20, 2019
Network founding members Bee Hughes and Dr Kay Standing, along with their colleague Dr Sara Parker, were jointly awarded the President Award at the 2018 LJMU SU Amazing Teaching Award. They received the award from 2018/19 LJMU Student’s Union President, Angelina Cliff, in recognition of their contribution to research on menstruation, activism, and their support of the SU’s campaign for free menstrual products on campus.
L-R: Dr Sara Parker, Dr Kay Standing, Bee Hughes
Menstruation Research Network Launch
March 1, 2019
This project is funded by a Wellcome Trust Small Network Grant, awarded to a group of interdisciplinary researchers, led by Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik in January 2019. We aim to establish a UK-wide network for menstruation researchers, activists, artists, campaigners, healthcare providers and those working within the menstruation industry.
Our network events are free and open to all, and aim to empower professionals, activists and academics to gain an overview over the state of the field, knowledge and cultural representation, set research agendas together, and plan future interdisciplinary collaborative work.
While we aim to welcome and support as many people as possible to attend our events, and to provide a platform for knowledge sharing across disciplines and areas of work and activism, we are a small network with limited resources at this time. We will endeavour to keep all attendees and network mailing list subscribers updated on future funding efforts, and aim to continue to grow our network over the coming years.