Iranian women all over the world have donated headscarves, which were collected and used as a primary material to create stadium seating in an act of resistance against gender inequality by Sydney-based Iranian-Australian designer Nila Rezaei and Austrian designer Christopher Krainer from RK Collective.
Crafted Liberation: A Quest by Women of Iran is a direct response to the recent death of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who, last year at 22 years old, was arrested by the Iranian ‘moral’ police and died in custody due to an improper headscarf violation. Her death sparked widespread protests among Iranian women worldwide. The symbolism of the stadium seating is because, since 1981, Iranian women have been banned from attending men’s sporting events in stadiums.
RK Collective worked in collaboration with Australian manufacturing partners Talon Technology and Defy Design to realise the project, with the headscarves mixed with other materials including soft plastics, then made into sheets and formed into bucket seats through Talon Technology’s ‘WasticFibre’ process.
“To voice for those often silenced, we launched a collective call for action, inviting Iranian women globally to donate their unwanted headscarves for this transformative project. Their contributions led to the creation of the exhibited stadium seats and collectively we transform a traditional symbol of oppression to a beacon of empowerment,” says Nila Rezaei.
Nila Rezaei visited Eindhoven to show the work under the title Crafted Liberation: A Quest by Women of Iran at Dutch Design Week in 2023.
