An Iranian-Australian designer has transformed unwanted headscarves into colourful sports stadium seats in an act of symbolic defiance against female oppression.
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00:00So, in 2022, we sort of had this very tragic event happening in Iran where Massa Jina Amini
00:12lost her life while she was in the custody of so-called morality police for not wearing
00:18her sort of headscarf correctly. And that really had a very big impact on all the women
00:24in Iran and the diaspora. You know, everyone's sort of wanting to protest in their own way
00:30and say no to the oppression. And that's how sort of the idea for this project came about.
00:35And so, many Iranian women stopped wearing their headscarves in protest and you decided
00:41to start collecting them. How did you go about that?
00:45That's right. So, sort of this rejection of headscarves became very symbolic as part of
00:52that Women Like Freedom movement. And I sort of wanted to really showcase this collective
00:59resilience of the movement and the fact that, you know, these many women really bravely
01:04go on the streets and protest. So, we just sort of sent a call out in social media and
01:11asked, starting from friends, asking our friends and then their friends and friends of friends.
01:16And it sort of had a ripple effect where we asked women to send us their unwanted headscarves.
01:21We provided a postal address, a postbox, and we started getting scarves from all around
01:26the world and from Iran as well.
01:28Yeah. What kind of response did you get? How many people sent you their scarves?
01:33It was brilliant. I think today, like up to today, we have received about 500. It was
01:39490 a while ago and now we've sort of passing the 500 mark. And we are still receiving headscarves,
01:46so we're very much encouraging women around the world and in Iran, if you want to give
01:50us a headscarf, please send it to us. The address is available. But yeah, we've sort
01:55of passed the 500 mark.
01:57And I know you've been careful to point out that this artwork you've created, it's not
02:02protesting the wearing of headscarves per se, but it's more about the lack of choice
02:07that women have about whether or not to wear one. Can you explain that for us?
02:12Yeah, absolutely. We've been very deliberate with sort of our choice of word, first of
02:18all. So we never use the word hijab, for instance, in this case, because the message that we're
02:23trying to convey is really not around criticism or saying that headscarf itself is bad. It's
02:31really the oppression and the lack of wearing it or the lack of banning it also is not good.
02:39So we're really just trying to amplify this collective movement and the resilience that
02:45Iranian women have been showing through their fight for freedom and just making sure that
02:51we're very clear about the fact that the headscarf itself, it's an object. It's a piece of textile.
02:58Those who wear it by choice, you know, it is very liberating if you have the choice
03:03to have it or not. But the message for this project is specifically around that idea of
03:09oppression against women in general.
03:11And you've used these beautiful textiles to create these sports stadium seats, and
03:17they're really instantly recognisable, the shape of them as sports stadium seats. What's
03:22the significance of that?
03:25So we wanted to sort of take these headscarves and turn them into an object, again, which
03:31is symbolising oppression against Iranian women. And a stadium seat, as beautiful as
03:36it is, it is a sign of exclusion in public spaces for Iranian women. So for many years,
03:43you know, we didn't have the choice to go to a public stadium to watch a game. And this
03:47is the past 40 years, post-1979. And so for me and to a lot of Iranian around the world,
03:57this stadium seat is really symbolising that exclusion and that oppression. What we're
04:02trying to do here is take that sort of scarf and turn that symbol of oppression into, you
04:09know, a symbol of empowerment, an object that also symbolises unity and celebration. A stadium
04:15is where people come together to cheer up. And we're really trying to use this sort of
04:19contrast to highlight how resilience can actually move to empowerment and, you know, sort of
04:26strength.
04:27The seats are going on display. What would you like to see happen to them after that?
04:34Well, the North Star for us is really to actually see them in public spaces being used. So, you
04:40know, my my ideal world in the future is that we actually install these in Azadi Stadium,
04:45which is, you know, Tehran's biggest football stadium. So one day, if we can install them
04:50in that stadium, that is, to me, that's absolutely amazing. But we would like to sort of start
04:56installing them in public spaces such as libraries, galleries, cultural institutions, places
05:01where people come together and sort of, you know, share ideas, celebrate and talk about
05:07these topics that we're facing in our society. So I think for us, the next step is to move
05:13to that direction.