Feminist Internet Residency project reveal: Orchid Surrogacy

As part of the program, a 6-week residency ran, which allowed a current UAL student to develop their own project. Working in line with the program's research theme, questioning how we can incorporate queer and feminist practices into virtual realities, the student created a piece of work that explored the future of reproductive technology alongside the climate crisis.

Honey was the second UAL student and artist to receive the opportunity to develop a piece of work within Feminist Internet’s Residency at CCI. Honey is an artist based in London. Embodying feminist and ecological speculations, her practice gathers future positions that depart from binaries to merge the spaces between technology, humans and the non-human world.

By exploring this primarily through the gestating body, these speculations carry ecofeminist values that question the current inequalities we face today because of patriarchal and anthropocentric thinking. Honey is currently studying BA Fine Art at Central Saint Martins and is the second Feminist Internet Resident supported University of Arts London’s Creative Computing Institute.

"My experience during the residency at Feminist Internet has been truly enjoyable. It pushed me to develop my practice to its best, gaining new technical skills along the way.” - Honey Baker

Set in the body of an advert, Orchid Surrogacy speculates on the future of reproductive technology simultaneously with the climate crisis. Sitting within a space close to our current world, the work mimics capitalist and consumerist behaviour to explore gender and biopolitics. In questioning the future, we gain perspectives on the present. This enables speculative art to uncover the current urgencies we are living in.

The film was produced for the Feminist Internet Residency, part of the Embodying Horizons: Queerness and Feminism in Virtual Realities program at University of the Art’s London’s Creative Computing Institute.