Funded by the Wellcome Trust from January 2022 – January 2025
Established by Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik and colleagues in 2019 with a Wellcome Trust Network Grant, the Menstruation Research Network UK has been able to partake in and document a change in the visual culture, art, discourse, policy, and media surrounding menstruation in Britain and the world. This network included scholars, activists, and artists from many disciplines, including Art History and visual culture.
Since then, Scotland has passed the Period Product (Free) Provision Act, the UK has formed the Period Poverty Task Force, and the Welsh and Northern Irish governments have outlined similar policies. The network has been involved in these debates, lending interdisciplinary expertise about menstruation to policy makers, academic colleagues, and activists. In 2021 we were awarded funding to carry on this work for the next four years. Today, the continuation of our work is more necessary than ever, as menstrual discourse moves from a focus on products to larger debates about underlying structural issues, such as legal rights, sustainability, and diversity. The grant will continue our network by hosting three blended (online and in-person) workshops at the University of Aberdeen, University of St Andrews and Liverpool John Moores University. These events will invite international keynote speakers and diverse stakeholders in and out of academia, linking UK debates about menstruation to the world. Our aim is to strengthen and broaden the network in the UK, link with international colleagues, plan ambitious grant applications, provide mentoring to students and early career academics, and information for policy, media and community engagement.
The network’s home in theArt History department at Aberdeen from 2022-2025 is a unique position for an interdisciplinary group of this size. Art history, visual culture and art itself challenges many of the stereotypes regarding menstruation, most notably instance the taboo of visual menstrual blood and the secrecy surrounding it. By foregrounding our network in questions of visual culture, the network makes a strong case for Art History as discipline that can bring expertise regarding visual stigma and history to other fields. By including artists in our work, we likewise connect current debates about menstruation to the contemporary practices of artists who are attempting to challenge taboos today. The network will also engage with the strong scholarly tradition of Women’s Health Research at Aberdeen, as well as researchers who examine digital culture and women’s health, feminist histories of art and film, and international perspectives on menstrual education and wellbeing.
Image: Beauty in Blood project by Jen and Rob Lewis, The Whirl, 2010s. Menstrual fluid collected in menstrual cup by artist and photographed. Wellcome Trust Collection, attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
