Genesis is a food-based project representing the beginning of a life. I took inspiration from Emily Martin’s paper “The Egg and the Sperm” (1991), which discusses the gendering of biological processes in reproduction. One specific aspect from Martin’s paper was her mention of an electron micrograph titled “A Portrait of the Sperm.” She points out that, though the ovum is one third of the image, the title of the photo makes no mention of the ovum. She equated this to calling a picture of a dog a picture of the flea. As a part of Genesis, I decided to recreate “A Portrait of the Sperm” to put as much emphasis on the egg as possible, highlighting the hypocrisy of gendering biological processes. My recreation is titled “A Picture of the Flea” as an homage to Martin’s works. Below you can see “A Portrait of the Sperm,” “A Picture of the Flea,” and the entirety of the Genesis project.

Process
Stage 1 Courtship
Stage 2 Fertilization
Stage 3 Unraveling, Expansion, and Specialization
Stage 4 Gestation Completion
Stage 5 Birth
Stage 6 What Happens After