Crafted Liberation

Crafted-Liberation was initiated as a response to the recent Women.Life.Freedom movement. In September 2022, the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman in morality-police custody for a perceived headscarf violation, sparked a global outcry and brave protests amongst Iranian-women, despite the risk of persecution. To amplify the voice of this brave movement, crafted-liberation launched a collective-call-for-action via social-media, inviting all Iranian-women globally to join by posting us their unwanted headscarves, as the material for producing stadium-seats. These seats, usually off-limits to Iranian-women, symbolizes their daily-discrimination, but now reimagined as a vessel of empowerment, celebrating Iranian-women’s resilience.

Crafted-Liberation celebrates the stories of Iranian-Women across the globe, by using their donated scarves, and co-creating a space for conversation, inspiration and action. It is designed to spark a dialogue about societal issues through tangible-objects. Shortly after launching the social-media campaign, 12 kg of headscarves were collected from Iranian-women globally. Collaborating with Australian industry-partners and through an R&D process, an innovative product was created. Combining 100% recycled-textiles and waste plastics using compression molding techniques, paying homage to traditional stadium seats constructed from lightweight-composites. Each seat is embodied with a significant story that belongs to the donor of the textile.

Launched with acclaim at Dutch-Design-Week 2023, Crafted-Liberation immediately became a platform for engaging discussions on societal-norms, gender-inequality, and the power of collective-action. The approach of reflecting a cultural-narrative through a functional-object viewers can interact with, evoked emotional responses, sparking numerous positive and engaging discussions. These engagements demonstrated opportunities for a much larger-vision, How might adaptive re-use of waste-materials and design-innovation as a tool to engage with culturally-diverse communities create spaces of acceptance and belonging, sharing their unique narratives and experiences. Crafted-liberation gives voice to those often silenced, and creates a space to have these conversations and inspire action.

Since 1981, Iranian women have been banned from attending men’s sporting events in stadiums, justified by preserving modesty and gender segregation. The seats crafted from donated headscarves challenge this unjust tradition and signifies the dawn of a new era of liberation. Crafted-Liberation became more than an exhibition; it is a movement that embodies the spirit of collective action to initiate positive change. It stands as a beacon of hope and empowerment, inviting Australians and the global community to engage, reflect, and be moved by the profound stories woven into its fabric. This project is made possible through collaboration with Australian manufacturing partners, Talon Technology and Defy Design. Talon’s patented ’WasticFibre’ process, which combines waste soft plastic bags with textile to create flexible composite sheets, was instrumental in shaping the iconic bucket seats that now form the heart of our project. The lightweight composite sheet was thermoformed into seat forms, reminiscent of traditional fiberglass techniques historically used in outdoor seating products while providing the same qualities of increased strength and lightness required in a shell seat. Additionally, our collaboration with Defy-Design, specialists in crafting impactful products from recycled plastic waste, provided invaluable insights and access to facilities for early material-experimentation.