Week One
Our new task and the last one for this semester is called: `Take a…Seat`. The aim for this project is to re-imagine the notion of a stool and design it in context of a political statement. It should be conducted again in groups to combine our experience. The brief asks to design a stool, which accommodates a minimum of one person. We are free in the choice of material, but we mostly rely on material held in the workshop. First we had a discussion about our personal interest and the possible topic. We were all interested in politics, but everybody from an individual angle. Then we compared the shift of political and social views over time in Europe. During this discussion we came to the theme ‘equality’, included in the wider context of human rights. Women rights and equal opportunities have been hot topics for over 200 years. We decided that we want to design a stool, which rises awareness on women rights today. For this reason we followed up deeper research in the present and the past of feminism. We had a closer look at the campaign #HeforShe or #femen, both engaging men to become advocates for the achievement of gender equality. After the idea was born we started sketching and model making. We also had a first look into possible material, like using concrete and oak.
Week two
The second week of the ”take a … seat” project was all about research, brainstorming and finding a final design idea. We had a closer look into media and the current situation of women around the world. We got inspired by Malala Yousafzai who fights for women’s right of education and won the Nobel Peace Prize 2014 together with Kailash Satyarthi. She got shot 2012 by the Taliban(For further information please read: “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban”)
After a broader search into the world wide issues of women’s rights and the problems women have to face every day, we defined Asia ,the Middle East and part of Africa as hotspots. In these countries the gap between the women’s and the men’s rights is significant. In the majorities of these countries women are only worth half as men and have to face abuses on a daily base. But also the cultural tradition plays a major role and causes a lot of problems. As an example boys are preferred in India because the family does not have to pay dowry in case of marriage. Also families want to have a boy that he can carry on the family name and business. The same traditional habit also causes issues in China with the one-child-policy. These role models cause further problems down the line, for example the lack of female in population. With less girls are getting born, men will have trouble to find a wife. This leads to a lot of frustrated single men with an overall increase in rapes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7d7w8iOEB0%5B/embed%5D
But also in Western countries exists no perfect equality as women have to face sexism on a regular base. () We questioned ourselves: Why it is still this way and why are traditional role models still so much in our head? One possible explanation is the fear of losing advantages to women. For example, the fear of a stronger competition about workplaces, to get a job or even to lose power in a partnership . On the other hand they are advantages, for example increased productivity in mixed teams at work.
We came to the conclusion that equality between men and women in every aspect would be good and lead to a better society. The first step would be to ban stereotypes from our thinking. This can only happen if we change parts of cultural understanding and previous education. In an ideal world it should not matter if the men, women or both provide a living for the family. It should be a free choice in a partnership.
With this background in our mind we sketched and made models to show the equality of men and women. Our final design consists of two parts, one representing men and the other women. Both shapes look quite similar, but different in construction. The male part looks solid and strong and the female part looks weak and fragile, but both have the same strength, can carry the same weight and have the same function. It shows that it does not matter, which gender you have you are an important and equal member of the society you live in.
It is a sensitive theme we chose and during our research we realized that it is more important than ever because even in the 21th century there is still a big gap between genders. We are happy that we chose this and hope that with our design we communicate that equality brings only advantages for everybody, because women profit from it as same as men do.
Week Three
The third week was about the actual production. After we had a final decision at the end of week two on a design and the background we split in different groups for building, producing the boards, 3D modeling and technical drawings. Everybody had a task to fulfill. And we counted on each other, because we had a tight schedule. We worked concentrated and hard to meet the deadline and to go without stress to our study trip to Amsterdam. We met our goals we have set for this week and we will be ready in time for the assessment on Thursday.
Final Week
During the last week of the ‘take a… Seat’ -project we combined everything to accomplish the final design sheets for our presentation. We created our final photos in Adobe Photoshop, imagine the stool in several situations and purposes, for example in education and public places, like councils, hospitals, offices as well as school and kindergarten.
The background for the latter was our observation that you have to start with the children to change their mind for an equal living together. Only if children do not grow up with fixed stereotypes in their mind it could be possible to change in world. But children are not our main target group. Adults should reflect their thinking on a daily base and question themselves if they really behave fair and on a polite way to each other. Like our research shows, there are still big issues in the world and it is only changing slowly. The latest example is sexual harassment on a daily base, which women have to face even in Western countries. This can be seen in the video from Shoshana Roberts: An actress, who recorded 10 hours of catcalls and remarks from passersby in New York City and received rape threats in response to the video.
Our aim with this stool is to make people rethink about this sensitive theme and start to take action. We waited far too long and the time has come to change the way we think.
Design by Bekker 