From breast milk to menstrual blood, how artist Jiabao Li challenges norms

Li makes art that reflects her experience as a mother and daughter, as well as her rage about women’s lack of bodily autonomy

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Artist Jiabao Li at her solo exhibition “Womb Wetware” at San Francisco’s Tiat Gallery. Photo: Daniel Clayton

Published: 4:15pm, 16 Aug 2026Updated: 2:36pm, 17 Aug 2026

Corrected [12:29pm, 17 Aug, 2026]

[12:29pm, 17 Aug, 2026]
The intro originally stated that Jiabao Li was almost not born because she was the second child. In fact, Li's mother had to battle to keep her because she was a girl.

Artist, inventor and professor Jiabao Li was almost not born. When her mother became pregnant with Li during the era of China’s one-child policy, she had to battle to keep her because of her gender. Over 330 million abortions were performed in China between the policy’s introduction in 1979 and 2013. “My mum had to fight not to abort me,” Li says.

Today, the 33-year-old Harvard graduate is an associate professor in the art and design department of Northeastern University in Oakland, in the US state of California. She previously worked as an inventor and designer for Apple and founded both the Ecocentric Future Lab at the University of Texas at Austin – to research non-human intelligence – and a multimillion-dollar medical start-up.

This varied experience feeds into the self-described feminist biohacker’s ability to create unique artworks that bridge art and science and address some of the world’s most pressing issues.

In recent years, her focus has increasingly shifted towards climate change and gender inequality. She is particularly determined to make art that draws attention to the fact that, according to the United Nations, only 56 per cent of women globally can make their own decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

“I want to put the anger back into my work and use it to benefit people at large,” she says.

Li in the washroom at San Francisco’s Tiat Gallery, in which she has installed her work “Give me a Red Tape” (2026). The work consists of wall displays made up of decades of reproductive propaganda slogans in China. Photo: Daniel Clayton

From breast milk to menstrual blood, how artist Jiabao Li challenges norms

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Li makes art that reflects her experience as a mother and daughter, as well as her rage about women’s lack of bodily autonomy

How a trip triggered an unconscious desire

Li makes art that reflects her experience as a mother and daughter, as well as her rage about women’s lack of bodily autonomy