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Dr. WhiteFeather Hunter

@astrodesia

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Leader in biotech + art + menstrual stem cells 🩸🧫
The Witch in the Lab Coat #witchesinlabs
PI @bioartincanada
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow @siatsfu

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The comment section is occasionally where great things happen. Under one of our posts, we got talking with a Canadian researcher and artist who grew a lab clitoris from stem cells, and who then patiently answered far more questions about blood than anyone should reasonably be asked. Dr. Hunter @astrodesia , thank you for your time and your patience.

So go on, comment more. See where it gets you 😈

[menstrual blood, biocapitalism, femtech, women’s health tech, feminist science, bioethics, stem cell research, bioart, Dr. WhiteFeather Hunter, extractive capitalism, matildas diaries] by @astrodesia

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🌟🌟🌟🌖This one’s for all my witches!🌔🌟🌟🌟This month, @tate @tatepublishing will be releasing this amazing book, Magic: Beyond the Supernatural in Contemporary Art, by the ever-lovely and brilliant Dr. Amy Hale @amyhale93
I’m soooooo completely chuffed to be included in her selection of artists featured in the book, many of whom I greatly admire, and I can’t wait to see the whole dazzling thing.
If you are in London on October 20th, Tate Modern will host a book launch and talk by Amy in conversation with Jamie Sutcliffe.
As Amy wrote on her Substack, Chasing the Supernatural: “For me, this is more than just a book about a topic that is often characterized in the media as ephemeral or trendy, it’s an opportunity to reconsider magic as an enduring and universal practice. I feel there has been a tendency to frame magic in art, especially when using the broader and perhaps more sanitized framework of “esotericism”, as a hidden current of knowledge or wisdom that is revealed through the use of symbol or correspondences. I am not delegitimizing this framework, because this is certainly how many esoteric, magical and occult artists would understand their practice. However, I want to demonstrate that magic takes many forms from the tactical to the transcendent, and that we can understand it as a creative response to the human condition.”

Cover art by @nvmoody

I will have to wait for my contributor copies in the mail, but please let me know if you do get a chance to go! 🖤

Tate Modern, Tuesday 20th October, 18.30 – 21.30 – Magic: Beyond the Supernatural in Contemporary Art
https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/magic-beyond-the-supernatural-in-contemporary-art

There will also be a second, more intimate event at Treadwell’s Books @treadwellsbooks in London on 15 October, with a talk and soirée:

Treadwell’s Books, Thursday 15th October, 19:00-21:00 - Magic in Contemporary Art: Talk & Soirée
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/treadwellsltd/2414404
#magic #magical #magicandart #tatemodernmuseum #thewitchinthelabcoat taken in Tate Modern by @astrodesia

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6 days ago

What a phenomenal experience it was to see my menstrual stem cell work screened at cosmic scale last night in the planetarium dome at the @spacecentreyvr as part of #sci_art2026 through @criticalfuturestudiolab - really, such a dream! It turned out better than I could have imagined, accompanied by a live band improvising to the imagery of the cells, and an interpretive dancer moving with them. It was really so special. 🌟
I don’t think any of my audience realized they were immersed in a menstrual environment, being the same size themselves as my live cells that stretched across the dome.
I’m officially hooked on dome projection, and now might have to go do a residency at @sat_montreal to develop this further. It is thanks to them, @john.desnoyers @rubysingh_ and others that this opportunity was made possible. So grateful!!!
🩸🧫🌕 taken in H.R. MacMillan Space Centre by @astrodesia

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11 days ago

The female (or AFAB) body is not biological waste.
Menstrual fluid has long been culturally constructed as contaminating, excessive, disposable. But biologically, it contains living cells, including regenerative cell populations with significant new research potential.
In my work, as a lab-based feminist bioartist, menstrual materials are far more than contested subjects of artistic representation. I bring them directly into the laboratory as active materials for tissue engineering, biofabrication, and the construction of speculative anatomies.
This changes the question.
Instead of just asking what these cells can become through my hours, days, weeks, months, YEARS of experiments, I also critically ask why some biological materials are recognized as scientifically valuable while others are dismissed before their possibilities can be explored.
Part of my previous doctoral research began with the query: What forms of knowledge start to become possible when we stop treating reproductive materials as biohazardous waste? How can we rewrite the narratives that maintain stigma and under-representation in research and within the broader culture?
Welcome to all recent new followers!
These are short notes from the Witch in the Lab Coat. Stick around for more!🩸🧫
#Bioart #FeministArt #MenstrualResearch #tissueengineering by @astrodesia

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2 months ago

𖤐—Behold—𖤐 the world’s first kitchen science DIY bioprinted clitoris, which I made yesterday in my little domestic kitchen space with a 3D bioprinter I hacked from a cheap 3D printer, and some cooked up stovetop DIY bioinks.
This work has been and is continuing to be developed with funding and presentation support from @artengine as part of the NEW SUNS Collective Worldbuilding Lab and very importantly, the bioprinter hack is a build designed by @emilioalarconottawa Intbiotech team at @uottawa Heart Institute, who have been very graciously supporting me through the process of putting this machine together.
The work will be installed during @pique next month — more info on that to come.
This bioprinting work is a continuation of research that I began in the summer of 2022, with a 3D bioprinting residency at a bioengineering research lab in Montreal (which I’m not allowed to name), very generously funded by @canada.council and @lecalq - and it’s been a long journey since.
During that bioprinting residency, I was able to experiment with an industry standard bioprinter, which cost the lab close to a half million dollars to buy. I wanted better access, and a cheaper alternative, which aligns with @emilioalarconottawa mission to make science research more accessible to the community. Thank you @cristianzaelzerart for introducing us last year—it’s been a game changer.
My previous research and bioprinting experiments, my expertise with menstrual stem cell culture developed as part of my PhD, and my bioengineer collaborators in Montreal then supported the Sentient Clit project I developed with @jia.bao.li where I differentiated my menstrual stem cells to neuronal types. These experiments were first supported by Dr. Stuart Hodgetts and @guybenary at @universitywa and then with very generous support from @martademenezes @cultivamoscultura @ectopia.lab @lsgraca lab at @ulisboa @gimm_institute - There are a lot of people behind this work over the past three years.
It goes on, next as part of my postdoc activities at @siatsfu with @gasaceves - exciting things still to come. Watch this space!
More info in the comments. Ask any questions! by @astrodesia

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a year ago

Wait for it, waaaaaaaait for it!! (Slide 10)!
Before I ever entered a biolab, I had already been well-trained in the presentation of the female body.
I began modelling in high school with the Joan Chase Modeling Agency. Thankfully, Joan was acutely aware of the industry’s sexually exploitative tactics and made personal safety part of our training. She taught us how predatory people might disguise access to our bodies as a professional requirement, warning us about hairstylists who might ask young models to remove their shirts.
I was too short (5’5”) to pursue modeling as a career, but I later modeled in many different friendlier contexts: as a pin-up for the Fredericton Pride calendar, in bespoke fashions created by my wonderful students at NBCCD, and sitting for numerous artists I have known over the years. As a young, single mother in my 20s and 30s, this was often an important supplement to my income, and developed alongside my feminist activism.
In these contexts, I experienced my body become an image: posed, styled, interpreted through the gaze of others. These experiences made me directly aware of how women’s bodies are shaped and presented, and how it feels to inhabit my body as a person and a prop, to anticipate how it appears from the outside and adjust myself accordingly. This was long before social media or the selfie.
Through my feminist activism in the early 90s, I also learned that bodily display can be a political power. It often reproduces normative ideas of femininity, desirability, and value, but it can also become queer self-fashioning, creative exchange, mentorship, play, and performance.
This is one of many lived experiences shaping the social politics of my feminist bioart practice. My work reshapes bodies and bodily materials into unruly forms, alternative anatomies, and other possibilities for embodiment.

Slide 10: What do you think? 🧫👀 Should I do it???
Photo details in comments.
#FeministBioart #BodyPolitics #Bioprinting #SpeculativeAnatomy #menstrualstemcells by @astrodesia

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2 months ago

This is Sentient Clit: the Pussification of BioTech (2026) by Jiabao Li @jia.bao.li and WhiteFeather Hunter @astrodesia ꨄ︎

In Menstrual blood, there are stem cells, and they are pluripotent, meaning they can differentiate into specialized cells and grow into organs. What’s more, they can differentiate into the widest range of cell types compared to most other stem cells, making them exceptionally versatile.

So in the lab, we set out to see where this could take us. We collected our menstrual blood, harvested the stem cells within, differentiated or “turned them into” erectile cells and neural cells.

Then implanted these into the clitoris structure using 3D bioprinting.

These are some neural cells that grew from our menstrual stem cells.
With this, we are able to grow a clitoris that can both sense and think.

If it’s a living clitoris that can sense and think. Is it a sentient being?
Can it sense arousal and have pleasure?

The work is available for purchase. DM or email email@tiat.place to inquire.

Womb Wetware ꨄ︎ enters the wet, unruly terrain of Jiabao Li’s feminist biohacking practice. Created during pregnancy, after birth, and through years of research with menstrual blood, these works approach the reproductive body as ancient wetware: intelligent, leaky, erotic, and alive.

tiat is the intersection of art and technology! we are gallery for creative technologists to experiment, exhibit, and expand their practice. ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ tiat is 501c3 nonprofit, our EIN is: 39-3448606

#tiat #creativetechnology #sanfrancisco #artandtechnology #newmediaart taken in San Francisco, California by @astrodesia

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2 months ago

We are pleased to announce the inaugural BioSpeculations Symposium, an international gathering on bioart and biohacking at Indiana University Bloomington. This symposium is hosted by the EcoMedia Lab and organized by IU faculty members Katina Bitsicas (Media School) and Faye Gleisser (Art History). BioSpeculations 2027 is taking place from March 31-April 2, 2027 at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
Our goal for the BioSpeculations Symposium is to bring together an intimate group of artists, biohackers, filmmakers, cultural theorists, curators, and students to think through the history, possibilities, and future of biohacking vis-a-vis contemporary art. You will be joined by invited guest speakers Fiona Bell, Jacklyn Brickman, Erin Espelie, WhiteFeather Hunter, Mary Maggic, Lorelei D’Andriole, and Fannie (Shadow) Sosa.

We are inviting the submission of abstracts for short conference presentations/lightning talks, no longer than 10 minutes. We encourage a range of topics, including and not limited to: notions of embodiment and biohacking; intersections of race and health; hormonal management and state surveillance; ecocritical art, waste studies, and environmentalism; anthropologies of medical surveillance and resistance; pirate care; cyberfeminist tactics of repair; reproductive justice; nonbinary and trans rights and aesthetics; ancestral biohacking, healing, and subversion; and more.

The deadline for submissions is Oct. 26, 2026. For more information and to apply, visit: https://ecomedia.lab.iu.edu/symposium/ #ecomedia #bioart #biohacking #ecoart #newmedia taken in Indiana University Bloomington by @astrodesia

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What changes when the body once dismissed as unclean becomes commercially useful?

This work looks at menstrual blood through the lens of extraction: the distance between valuing what a woman’s body produces and valuing the woman herself.

Scientific possibility does not settle the questions of consent, ownership or profit. Whose blood? Whose terms? Whose future?

Inspired by the feminist bioart, research and critical writing of Dr. WhiteFeather Hunter (@astrodesia), and Matilda’s Diaries (@matildas.diaries_en), whose “The Menstrual Gold Rush” brought these questions into focus.

Further reading: WhiteFeather Hunter’s “The Future Blood Farm” and “Period Profit and the Techbro Pipeline”; Zara Stone’s “Blood money” in The San Francisco Standard.

🎧 Blood Roses @toriamos by @astrodesia

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Here’s what working with your own menstrual cells actually looks like — no memes, no glorification and hype, no romanticization and false promises of life saving miracles — just the actual laboratory labour and the actual science. I’m the one DOING IT, not waxing poetic about it to sell a mere idea. And I’ve been the one doing it all along, dedicating countless hours and years of my life to this research.
Question every memefied content blast about menstrual stem cells you see on social media. More often than not, it hides a lack of real experience, lack of credibility, and lack of ethics.
THIS is the real thing. I’m not selling, not profiting, and not misleading the masses.
#menstrual #menstrualstemcells #whitefeatherhunter #menstrualstemcellresearch by @astrodesia

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5 months ago

TELL ME SOMETHING: WOULD YOU EAT LAB-GROWN MEAT—MADE WITH MENSTRUAL BLOOD? 🩸🥩

Before you answer, consider what already feeds cells in the tissue engineering lab.
Cultivated meat has often been marketed as “clean,” sustainable, and free from animal slaughter. Yet mammalian cells have traditionally been grown using fetal bovine serum: a nutrient-rich blood product collected from calf fetuses during the slaughter of pregnant cows (yes, I know animal-free serum now exists, but commercial meat has not been grown with it yet!)
HEAR ME OUT: My lab project creating UNCLEAN MEAT asks whether human menstrual serum could instead sustain mammalian tissue culture.
The result is a lab-tested prototype where living tissue is cultivated using a substance that is routinely treated as contaminated, abject, and disposable.
I DID THIS WORK IN 2020!
It was never intended to become a commercial food product. It is a provocation.
Why does menstrual blood provoke greater disgust than the hidden animal blood products already embedded in biotechnology?
What becomes visible when the material feeding cultured tissue comes from my own body? And whose bodies are considered acceptable resources for technological innovation?
This project turns the promise of “clean meat” inside out. It highlights materials obscured by marketing language while positioning menstrual fluid as a potent biological material—and the menstruating body as a site of scientific knowledge.

So: would you eat it? Tell me in the comments: why or why not?
And what, exactly, makes one form of blood more “unclean” than another?

My peer-reviewed, published papers about the experiments are listed in the last slide.

#MenstrualMeat #FeministBioart #cellularagriculture #whitefeatherhunter #menstrualstemcellresearch by @astrodesia

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