breadbox is an ongoing body of work centered around care, commensality, and reproductive freedom. The majority of people who live in the so-called United States agree that people with the capacity to get pregnant should be able to control the means of their menstrual production. Nevertheless, attempts to restrict abortion access rely on fear, surveillance, and elite rule to perpetuate harmful myths, dominate our bodies, and punish our desires. breadbox resists this fear-mongering by focusing on the near-universal folk tradition of breaking bread, fostering affirming conditions to promote reproductive autonomy. 

The breadbox project averts high tech surveillance through a multi-modal constellation of access points. No two installations, video presentations, bread bags, or conversations associated with this project are exactly the same; the project travels and evolves as social conditions require. Videos carry information about pregnancy release through embedded closed captioning; while one video may discuss the role of misoprostol in abortion and miscarriage, another’s captions may expose the thin line between pleasure and pain in conversations around bodily autonomy, or the role of pregnancy management for people undergoing fertility treatment. Similarly, zines and brochures distributed through ‘bread bags’ are informational resources supporting access to care in the communities that the project visits. State-specific bread bags are available IRL and online for free or by donation; proceeds benefit practical support organizations. Live conversations accompanying project installations have their own magics.

breadbox moves in solidarity with people who have been pregnant or have never been pregnant, women, gender expansive folx, trans people, and all those who support us— countering the small group of outspoken extremists attempting to suppress bodily autonomy. breadbox treats the liveliness of sourdough baking (and each other) with responsive, sustained, and tender care, inviting us to articulate regionally-specific answers to the question: how do people access abortion care here?