Hacking Dolls
DRS26 June
Edinburgh
Performing Reproductive Health Experiences through Design
✱ Design Research
✱ Design Research
This 90-minute exploration adopts a speculative and performative approach, using dolls as material and symbolic media through which reproductive health experiences can be explored, deconstructed, and reimagined through play.
This is an in-person event.
June 8th 2026
16.00-17.30 (local time)
50 George Square
G.01 Room E5
Edinburgh— Scotland
How can I participate?
The exploration is open to all conference attendees. We will bring all the materials you need. We ask you to bring a reproductive experience (personal or secondhand) you’d like to explore, or a question you'd like to discuss together at DRS2026, and get hacking with us!
Workshop Theme
The workshop aims to explore reproductive experiences through play. We will be hacking dolls to explore together how reproductive events feel and transform the body.
We propose three interrelated thematic areas:
How reproductive health experiences (such as pregnancy, abortion, surrogacy and more) unsettle the notion of a singular, bounded body
How reproductive health stories are shaped collectively, (for example in relationships with partners, families, and institutions).
How reproductive health experiences might intersect with other health conditions (such as chronic illness and mental health.
Exploration Flow
16:00 ~Walk in and welcome
We invite people to bring lived or borrowed reproductive experiences to collectively explore them by hacking dolls through craft materials, annotations, props, and storytelling. By reshaping bodies and staging interactions, participants will reflect on experiences that resist articulation, the feasibility and tensions of these methods, and alternative visual vocabularies for communicating embodied and affective experiences.
16:10 ~ Hands-on play: Hacking dolls
Participants will pick one or multiple dolls to hack. Using craft materials, props, and devices, they will reconstruct the dolls in cyborg-like ways to materialize a reproductive health experience. Through reshaping bodies, adding symbolic or speculative elements, and staging relationships or care interactions, participants will explore the emotional, relational, and embodied dimensions of reproductive experiences that may be difficult to verbalize or represent through conventional forms of discussion.
Experiences may include, but are not limited to: pregnancy, abortion, surrogacy, miscarriage, endometriosis, adenomyosis, PMOS, PMDD, chronic illness, and mental health.
17:00 ~ Annotate your hacked doll
Participants annotate their hacked dolls directly or through notes placed alongside them. You are invited to describe, question, or expand the experiences represented in the dolls. We would like to understand what you see in the doll now, how it has been trasformed, while encouraging reflection on what still remains difficult, unresolved, or impossible to articulate through annotation alone.
17:10 ~ Plenary discussion and feedback
Participants collectively reflect on the process, discussing what the activities surfaced, what remained difficult to articulate, and how these methods might translate to other reproductive health and care contexts based on their experiences. We invite feedback from researchers and professionals on the potential of using these methods in clinical and non-clinical settings to discuss reproductive experiences.
