Fertility Fortunes : Anna Burel

About

How can ideas, relationships and futures be made fertile, with or without having children?
What is it you need to know about your future? What do you want your future to hold? What do you still hold in doubt? Do those doubts need resolution or might they, too, be fertile?
Where have you been looking for answers so far? From science? Google? God? Friends and family? Modernity or history? Nature? Your dreams? The stars?
These cards are not tarot, though they share the language of inquiry and introspection. And, instead of you posing questions of the cards, the cards ask you about how your desires fit (or might be made to fit) into your world. They seek a rich inclusive conversation, with space for all.
Hold one card or draw a spread. Use the image or the words. Ask yourself, your friend or partner. Then shuffle the deck and ask again.

The work displayed here presents images from a deck of cards which open out
conversations about fertility health and trying to become a parent. They are modeled on
historical tarot to reflect the odd speculative space that can open when futures are uncertain.
The framed pieces present a curated selection of 15 original drawings created for the deck, each rendered in dip pen and ink on paper. The composition for each card was discussed, with several preliminary sketches and back and forth exchange of ideas between Isabel and Anna. You can have a glimpse of this collaborative process in “the white book” also on display.
The cards follow a tarot format with 22 major arcana cards, exploring archetypes and 56
minor arcana cards, arranged in four suits: fortune, secrecy, uncertainty, and hope. Fortune can be good or bad, of course; and the other three suits also imply their opposites: openness, knowledge, and disappointment.

This card deck emerges from a long-term collaboration between artist, Anna Burel, and
historian, Isabel Davis. It formed the public engagement strand of the (Mis)Conceptions
project, an Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Development and Engagement Fellowship based in Natural History Museum, where Isabel works developing arts and humanities research. Anna and Isabel have also co-produced a book, Conceiving Histories: Trying for Pregnancy, Past and Present (MIT Press, 2025), which was recently shortlisted for the V&A Illustration Awards 2026, in the Adult Factual category.

Anna is a London-based artist and illustrator working across drawing, collage, photography, sculpture and textiles. Her practice centres on the body, particularly the female body under medical and cultural scrutiny, with a focus on women’s reproductive health, past and present.