We have been menstruating since the beginning of human life, yet there is very little known about what is in the fluid released by menstruating individuals. So we set out to find what proteins are in menstrual effluent using mass spectrometry. The first and only proteome study on menstruation blood was done a decade ago, funded by forensics. We started this research from a pure curiosity about what is in period blood. This is the first time anyone has tracked menstrual blood proteins in the same individual over time. In doing so, we established the first stable menstrual blood proteome. We have found many proteins not seen in venous blood. Some of these proteins protect the female reproductive organs from infection and foster the local microbiome. Others signal to cells to die or transform. Many of the proteins are essential for the way cells come together to form the walls of the uterus or excretions that constitute mucus. Many of those proteins can be linked to fertility, endometriosis, and cervical cancer. Still, others have completely mysterious roles to science, yet are quite prevalent, like the major vault protein, which hides RNA within its vault-like structure for unknown reasons.

In this olfactory piece, the three scent bottles contain the smell of fresh menstrual blood, stagnant menstrual blood, and menstrual pain. One bottle contains the top ten proteins found uniquely in menstrual blood. Another bottle has an organ garden grown out of menstrual blood. Scientists have discovered that cells taken from menstrual blood can be used like stem cells to repair damaged tissue or even grow into new organs. One day, menstruating people could use their menstrual blood for their own treatment. This would overcome a major problem of immune system rejection.

Menstruating people's unique ability has been discarded and treated as an annoyance. I am fascinated by the idea that it could now be our superpower to treat ourselves without invasive stem cell harvesting procedures. If we can harvest menstruation blood to cure disease and grow our own organs (or organs to be donated), what new body politics does this superpower create? We are banned from abortion. Will our superpower be banned or harvested? Will menstruation be one more way to be exploited? Would the ability to access and grow organs, even in the comfort of one's home, create advantages for menstruating people? Could this superpower tilt the balance of power between womb-holders and those without?

Excerpt from A smell of one's own: feminine trails in art

"Certain emanations from the female body, more circumstantial or functional, have also been used by contemporary artists to deconstruct other unfounded and limiting assumptions, while celebrating the – sometimes unsuspected – powers of this body. Menstrual blood, for example, has long been considered impure, even dangerous, and its odors are still largely taboo. This is why it has become both subject and medium in feminist artistic practices (Judy Chicago, Valie Export, Lætitia Bourget, Gina Page, Vanessa Tiegs, Lani Beloso, Paola Daniele, etc.). Until January 2023, the New York gallery Olfactory Art Keller presented a protean project by Jiabao Li entitled "Menstrual Garden" whose ambition was to change the perception of this misunderstood fluid by emphasizing its powers. The installation thus included several odors evoking menstruation as well as 3D printed sculptures representing ten proteins specific to these as well as others cultured from cells taken from the artist's own blood. " Scientists have discovered that cells taken from menstrual blood can be used as stem cells to repair damaged tissue or even grow into new organs ," explains the artist. " I'm fascinated by the idea [that the ability to menstruate] could now be a healing superpower. The smell thus comes to engage the visitor in a sensory way in a scientific discourse but also to embody invisible potentialities helping to supplant the cultural rejection of menstrual blood and its effluvia."

Excerpt from Fragrantica

Jiabao Li holds a unique title of professor, artist, and technologist, who often ends up working with a severely scientific bend. Being married to her project partner, a biophysicist, Cooper Gavin, probably only encourages this latter angle. Despite the shock to some, Li began collecting her own menstrual blood with an idea of somehow better understanding this taboo and completely understudied realm.

"I've always been interested in menstruation... This thing that's so understudied, and we've been menstruating since the beginning of... life, really. Maybe it's because most scientists are men, or it's hard to get a sample, or people are disgusted handling the sample, so, there's not much study," Li explains about the surprising lack of what we know about this phenomenon.
"I've been collecting my menstrual blood for about half a year, and every month we sample it under mass spectrometry, trying to analyze the proteins inside. So, this started from a scientific exploration, and developed into artwork. We found a lot of unique proteins that only exist in menstrual blood, that don't exist in venous blood. And when I take my menstrual blood, I also draw venous blood at our university's health research center."

If this weren't eyebrow-raising enough, it would turn out that this unique blood also contains easily obtainable stem cells, that they were then able to grow other proteins out of, which, if pressed, have the potential to turn into fully formed and functionally recognizable human elements, like organs.
So along with sculptures, and full-color pictures of these unique proteins and cells, each station in the exhibit has a corresponding scent associated with each step of the way – Fresh, Pain, Stagnant – all perfumed by Li herself.

Fresh is initially jarringly, metallic and tannic, so much so that the initial hit causes your mouth to water, scoffing at the impropriety of such a reaction. It's unashamedly primal and stinging, but there's a slow reveal of a sickly sweetness of rotting citrus fruit, that settles into a flesh scent, but not a cozy one, it's a flesh with no warmth – only animal left.

Pain, very surprisingly, is extremely comforting. The warmth and coziness that the aforementioned flesh above was missing are all here, in its entirety. There's a soft, fuzzy peach fleshiness rather than the animalistic kind, but included, is also a hint of honeyed sweetness that an actual soft peach flesh itself would be hinting at, holding at bay. Under this, is a supple spiciness that nods at Li's remedy for period cramps – warm pads with Chinese herbal medicinal ingredients giving off a woody, five-spice sillage. Honestly, I would actually wear this one.

Stagnant smells exactly like its namesake. The sickly sweet citrus rot is back, but this time it's not rotting, it's already rotted. There's a bit of a feeling of something folded into this that's almost resinous, but that direction is interrupted by a powdery element, yet with a ferrous tang. It see-saws between agreeable and offensive, which of course, keeps you sniffing again and again, despite yourself. Complex animals we are indeed.

Website: https://www.jiabaoli.org/menstrual-garden

More project details are in the PDF attached.