The Giant Placenta Project: A journey in public health promotion

A giant placenta sculpture is being readied to be packed into four large suitcases and transported from Australia to Denmark. There, at the Aarhus University Science Museum, it will become a central feature in a science communication program scheduled for 2025-6. This initiative, created by Rebecca Vandyk-Hamilton, B.A., B.Ed., B.Sci(Psych. Hons), M.P.H., aims to break taboos and foster discussions around often overlooked aspects of human biology.

The journey of the Giant Placenta began before the COVID-19 pandemic when Vandyk-Hamilton was pursuing her Masters of Public Health. She launched the #placentaproject to highlight the significant yet often invisible labor involved in women's work, which is typically messy and excluded from everyday conversation. This exclusion, she argues, has cost society valuable opportunities for connection. The project attracted widespread participation, becoming a platform for sharing diverse stories about pregnancy, birth, motherhood, womanhood, sisterhood, death, and health.

The sculpture itself was crafted from over 900 recycled t-shirts, transformed into yarn and knitted into what became the Giant Placenta. This was a communal effort, involving Vandyk-Hamilton, her children, a sister, and friends both old and new—30 women in total—over approximately two years of continuous crafting.

After its completion, the sculpture was displayed across Australia, including at Sydney University for a conference by The Australian Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (AMIRCI), the National Midwives’ Conference in Canberra, the Hudson Institute for Medical Research, and several other notable locations. Each exhibition provided a forum for more stories to be shared, enriching the project's communal tapestry.

Vandyk-Hamilton clarifies that the project is not an endorsement of practices like consuming one's placenta or a call to return to home birthing. Rather, it is a declaration of the placenta as an amazing, yet hidden and largely unknown organ. Her intent is to spark curiosity and self-education about the placenta, especially when complications arise that challenge a healthy pregnancy.

The project also serves as a reminder of the social nature of birthing, a process that has become highly medicalised to minimise risk and remove the physical messiness of childbirth. This, Vandyk-Hamilton suggests, often strips the birthing process of its social and intuitive aspects, which could otherwise offer support and connection. Through her sculpture, she aims to facilitate embodied, tactile social connections, allowing for both difficult and joyous conversations.

As the Giant Placenta prepares for its journey to Denmark, Vandyk-Hamilton expresses a mix of sadness at its departure and pride in the potential further impact it will have. She hopes it will continue to serve as a catalyst for conversations and learning, making the invisible stories of women's experiences visible and valued.