Pepi Ng
NYC-based creative technologist,
designer and community organizer
Stained Underwear
“Stained Underwear” sheds light on the often hidden and stigmatized inconveniences people face throughout their lifetime because of menstruation.
Above: Video explaining Stained Underwear. It consists of a sink with a bloody, stained underwear in it. Next to the sink is a robotic
arm with a brush attached at the end.
Drawing on Pepi's raw and intimate period data, this project aims to visualize the labor, time and resources menstruating people have to invest into coping with their periods. We hoped to bring a topic that is usually hidden behind closed doors into a public space.
- Exhibited in UVA’s School of Data Science (May 2024 - Dec 2024)
Process
1. Brainstorming
Ever since I started using birth control the past year and a half, my menstruation has been extremely irregular. For the first year, I had no periods at all, and for the next half of the year, my periods started arriving at weird intervals, and would last up to 3 weeks.
When that happened, I found myself always having blood leak through my underwear and scrubbing my stained underwear in my bathroom sink to get the stains away almost every day. My mother was the one who taught me to hand-wash my underwear from a young age, so that we don't have to waste too much water in the laundry-machine.
I started thinking about the amount of time and resources (water, detergent, manual labor) that I physically make use of, and go through, when scrubbing my own underwear. And with that, I started also thinking about the amount of money I have spent on sanitary products, and what this meant for the broader population who might not have the resources I have (aka period poverty).
Above: Initial brainstorming in my sketchbook
2. Collecting Data
I started recording the number of times I had to scrub each stained underwear every night.
Above: A record of the number of scrubs per underwear
3. Building and iterating
By using actual underwear in the project, we are boldly addressing the concept that periods should be made more visible and talked about.
The repetitive, monotonous, and continuous movement of the robotic arm points out the big amount of labor invested in menstrual care, and suggests that the issue of stained clothing is recurring in menstruating people’s lives.
We followed How to Mechatronics' tutorial to build our first robotic arm.
Above: Building our first prototype
4. Our first prototype
We first focused on making it functional- ie. making the water pump working, and making sure that the robotic arm and faucet worked as intended.
Above: A collage of our first prototype
5. Iterating
Moreover, we created a wooden box base, which contained all electronic components as well as the water tank.
Me working in Julia’s apartment
6. Final product
7. Fun with Julia at University of Virginia!
Julia and I at UVA’s Data is Art prize presentation
Credits
- Julia Daser for the fantastic collaboration
- UVA’s Data Science Department for the amazing opportunity (especially Emma Candelier for the constant communication)
- Gloria Duan and Morgan Mueller for your help through the first iteration of the project