Techno Tampons

Techno Tampons

An average menstruating individual endures some 456 total periods over 38 years. That's roughly 2,280 days with their period, or 6.25 years of their life. They are likely to use over 16,800 tampons and pads over the course of their lifetime (Weiss-Wolf, 2015). In Canada, menstrual hygiene products are among the top-three material costs of being a menstruating person under the age of 65 (Plan International Canada, 2018). There is growing awareness of, and demand for solutions to, the financial burden of menstruation—in 2014, the United Nations declared menstrual hygiene a public-health, gender-equality, and human rights issue (UN, Office of the High Commissioner, 2014). Beyond affordability and accessibility, periods and their management are linked to shame and dangerous misinformation, leading to serious human rights concerns (United Nations Population Fund, 2018). Through this micro-make, we will encourage our participants to think about the space created by menstruation, design, and technology through a critical, provo-making lens—an ask, we feel, that would be familiar to our siblings working at the Berlin Bauhaus.