Nayeli Vega
Public transportation in the dense and continuously growing cities of Latin America has been evaluated as highly unsafe for women, who face sexualized violence (sexual harassment and assault) on a daily base. A Thomson Reuters Foundation-study lists Bogota, Mexico City and Lima as the top-3 world capitals with the most dangerous public transportation systems for women.Knowledge is Power was created within 48 hours as a prototype for Berlin’s first Fashion Hack Day on May 2016. It is a conceptual work addressing the problem of invisibilized sexualized violence in urban public transportation – specifically Mexico City’s subway system -, that aims at drawing attention to the issue through design and research, thus raising public awareness.
“Knowledge is Power” talks about the possibilities of exposing the quantity of sexualized violence in public transportation though creating wearables that allow women to anonymously report acts of sexualized violence, thus generating data (time and location of the incident) that can be visualized on the fabric itself but also that can be visible to the authorities of the Mexico’s City Metro and for the population in general and thus to visualize the “red spots” in the system . Knowledge is Power is a statement: Every individual has the right to mobility and social, economical and political access. However, also in the urban area, there is still a lot of work to be done to achieve equity for women and continue the path towards the inclusive cities of the future.
The prototype works by pressing a button that activates an integrated WIFI module. This will gonna send the signal of location and time.The data will be updated in a cloud. Every subway station should collect their own data.
This project was created at the First Fashion Hack Day in Berlin getting the first Prize.
Team Fashion Hack Day:
Nayeli Vega (Mx)
Sophie Kellner (De)
Sarah Hermanutz (Can)
Thanks to Fab Lab Berlin and Fashion Hack Day for the support.