Surrogate is an artist book, based on a pregnancy journal, which charts the progress of a performance project over the course of fifty-two weeks. Lauren Lee McCarthy offers her body to carry someone else’s baby while they monitor and control her with an app. For nine months they decide what she eats, what she does, what thoughts she meditates on — holding complete control over the body in which their baby is growing. As Roe v. Wade is overturned and gene editing opens entirely new reproductive futures, this project asks: How much control should we have over a birthing person’s body, and over a life before it begins?
Author: Lauren Lee McCarthy Editor: Clark Buckner, Designer: Amy Fang, Design Assistant: Uma Das O’Toole.
