ABOUT

The Critical Anatomies Lab conducts Design Research on Health Equity, Community Well-being, and Emerging Technologies. We ask about the methods, tools and community-building strategies we need to design healing experiences, services and systems that advance goals of social and transformative justice.

Our YouTube Channel

We are uploading some of our projects' documentation to YouTube, as well as conversations with practitioners whose work connects to our vision in the lab. Subscribe and like!

We work across three areas:

Anatomical ontology: We study how visual representations of the body, and their technological mediations, shape our understanding, valuation, and imagination of bodies, and how they influence medical knowledge and healing practices. As action-reserach, we experiment with the affordances of body images to reimagine our connections to land, human and non-human life.

Community-based healthcare models: Care and caring are central to the work in the lab, especially when practices of care enter institutions, financial structures and regulations. We document, analyze and actively engage with healthcare models rooted in community care. We collaborate with Public Health organizations, grassroots organizers, community-based doulas and community acupuncture clinics to devise spaces for critical analysis and creative expression.

Emerging technologies in healthcare: As an interdisciplinary contribution between design and the social studies of science, we explore how emerging technologies shape labor relations around care, through a reading group and collaborative projects.