The Last Safe Abortion: Reproductive Freedom Advocacy Now in the Midwest
Carmen Winant in conversation with Eliza O’Brien and Linnea Anderson

Register for this online event here!

The Last Safe Abortion is an exhibit currently on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It draws on photographs and archival materials to highlight the everyday work of reproductive health services. Using The Last Safe Abortion as a springboard, this Zoom conversation will bring together archivists and abortion care workers from across the Midwest to discuss the status of reproductive access and advocacy on the ground. In addition, archivists from across the region will share material from their special collections, engaging the political imperative of collecting – and making available – such materials as a tool in the struggle.

Carmen Winant is an artist and the Roy Lichtenstein Chair of Studio Art at the Ohio State University; her work utilizes installation and collage strategies to examine feminist modes of survival and revolt, with particular emphasis on intergenerational, multiracial, and sometimes transnational coalition building. Winant’s recent projects have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Sculpture Center, Wexner Center of the Arts, ICA Boston, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and The Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo. Winant’s recent artist’s books include My Birth (2018), Notes on Fundamental Joy (2019), and Instructional Photography: Learning How To Live Now (2021); Arrangements and A Brand New End: Survival and Its Pictures (both 2022). Winant is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in photography, a 2020 FCA Artist Honoree and a 2021 American Academy of Arts and Letters award recipient. She is a mother to her two sons, Carlo and Rafa, shared with her partner, Luke Stettner.

Eliza O’Brien is a licensed social worker in Minnesota. She is currently the Clinic Manager at Whole Woman’s Health of Minnesota. Eliza got her start in abortion care at Red River Women’s Clinic in Moorhead, MN. Outside of work, Eliza enjoys walking her dog, playing hockey, and enjoying Minnesota nature.

Linnea Anderson is the Archivist of the Social Welfare History Archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries. She has an MA in History and Certificate in Archival Management from the New York University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of History and Archival Management Program, as well as a BA in History and BA in Theatre from St Olaf College.

Prior to working at the Social Welfare History Archives, Linnea was assistant archivist and then assistant director of the Columbia University Archives in New York.  She helped to plan and establish the first formal archives since Columbia’s founding in 1754. She also served as a consultant to archives and historical societies for the New York State Documentary Heritage Program. Before becoming an archivist, Linnea was a museum educator at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York where she developed and presented programs in New York’s historic waterfront district and in New York Harbor on board the historic 1885 schooner Pioneer.

This event is free and open to all in the spirit of solidarity!