Futurekin Exhibition

Pointing to a future where childbirth is questioned, FUTUREKIN considers the new products and methods of care that are traded and handed down, for an advanced reproductive landscape.

Lucy McRae’s exhibition FUTUREKIN is set in a post CRISPR world, where kids are brought to term and grown in complex, sensitive wombs in a lab.

The speculation anticipates ‘future-kids’ develop unfamiliar, neurobiological quirks, through lack of touch and fetal programming that takes place in the womb. By virtue of women being separated from pregnancy, science and biotech take on the roles of invitro maternal and paternal surrogates. This far-future what if, replaces abortion and a plethora of other incomprehensible questions, with enormous, ethical unknowns.

Three machines are seen within a sort-of sports court scenario, suggesting their recreational use and how they might become integrated into the day-to-day life of these new beings.

Heavy duty Love, Compression Carpet and Compression Cradle are mental health machines designed to compensate for a lack of human touch in early life. Sandwiching the body between layers of thick squishy stuff, these sponge-like machines build trust and connection, re-enforcing the protective embrace of a parent, gone lost, by virtue of lab grown origins. Fueling important dialogue on the complex realities of human connection and future intimacy, Lucy finds opportunities to highlight the evolution of care and nurture in a post CRISPR techno world –– forging new types of future, through science and story.

Artist Lucy McRae
Exhibition Design Tina Joyner, Lucy McRae
Production Assistant Attilio Bonelli

Installation Workshop
Viktor Abakoumkin, Kaitlyn Cartmell, Spencer Clark, Mateus Vieira Comparato, Leila Ghasemi, Maria Kuraeva, Samuel Monson, Khanh Linh Thai, Yuheng Zhu 

Book Design Christian Pepper
Poster Photography May Xiong 
Special thanks to Hernan Diaz Alonso, Machine Histories, SCI_Arc Fabrication Shop, Gabriel Hernandez, Stephanie Atlan

Featuring Artworks Heavy Duty Love
Commissioned by La Biennale Di Venezia
Curated by Hashim Sarkis, Gabriel Kozlowski, Roi Salgueiro
Supported by SCI_Arc and Creative Victoria

Future Survival Kit 2,0
Commissioned by Design Museum Holon for State of Extremes
Curator – Aric Chen with Maya Dvash and Azinta Plantenga

Compression Cradle
Co commission by Het Nieuwe Instituut and Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences
Curated by Angela Rui, Marina Otero
Special thanks to Keinton Butler