New forms of reproduction, hybrid and fluid, are challenging the social norms of broad geographic contexts, altering commonly accepted notions of conception, pregnancy and birth. The Think Tank: REPRODUCTIVE AGENTS exhibition brings together thirteen visual artists whose work examines the social, economic and political implications of how different societies define and relate to the concept of reproduction. Synthesizing scientific and speculative perspectives, these artistic proposals explore the conception and care of a new life starting from evolving paradigms that see the activation of "reproductive agency". The exhibition features works from 1940 to the present that variously relate to sexual and asexual reproduction, assisted reproductive treatments, fertility and hormonal studies, epigenetics and reproductive technologies, both for humans and other species , including non-living entities. Advances in reproductive medicine make it possible to alter the course of biological processes, thereby expanding the limits of the organisms that give rise to life. Yet what Charles Darwin wrote in 1862 still resonates strongly: “We do not know the final cause of sexuality at all; why should new living beings be procreated by the union of two sexual organs… The whole subject is shrouded in darkness” . The artists on display propose considerations on the origin of life in many ways, from the powerful energy used in the self-generation of a new life, to the subjective experience of feeding an autonomous body full of desires, fears and thoughts of one's own.

Two pioneering artists blur the boundaries between art and science and rework the concept of reproduction in unprecedented forms. For over five decades, Lynn Hershman Leeson has continually addressed technological issues through the use of artificial intelligence and, more recently, biotechnology and genetic engineering, relating them to issues of gender and identity. His first drawing, Pregnant woman in Xray suit from 1965, was inspired by having suffered from cardiomyopathy during pregnancy. This pathology forced the artist to undergo isolating medical procedures in an oxygen tent, and the consequent awareness of her own breathing led her to develop interactive cyborg figures entitled Breathing machines (1966-1967). Shu Lea Cheang 's work explores the cybernetic future of parenting with the development of fetuses in out-of-body artificial wombs (ectogenesis). Her video installation 0 x 9 (2023) questions the role of obstetric science in the context of a growing technological experience of human reproduction, speculating on the new types of bonds that could arise thanks to artificial wombs. “Treating a fetus as if it were outside a woman's body, making it visible, is a political act”, writes the artist. As the writer and philosopher Paul B. Preciado has argued, “we must apply the principle of cultural recombination to our strategies of production and reproduction of life, so as to transform our technologies of power and change (politically).”