Design
Protest Lab
How can feminist makerspaces be less dependent on posession of a single place?
How can feminist makerspaces protect existance and their identity
in a hostile environment?
Inspired by the mobile hawkers of Yogyakarta,
The Protest Lab’s alchemy puts a makerspace into what seems from the outside
to be a regular hawker.
Using a cargo bike as a base, it is a portable maker’s lab where a set of suitcases, each containing specific tools for making activities, are housed on a platform surrounded by a light enclosing structure. As more elements are added on top of each other and reveal themselves, they transform the vehicle into different forms. This way, a feminist makerspace does not have to stay in a certain physical location all the time, freeing them from rental pressure and enabling them to move to wherever it is safer.
Design Process
Through research and exchange with our network partner Dr. Stefanie Wuschitz, we gathered information on makerspaces in Yogyakarta. The collective Needle ‘n Bitch stands out for its radical autonomy and their focus on feminism, a still-sensitive topic in Indonesia’s conservative society. Founded in 2009 (making them one of the oldest makerspaces in Yogyakarta), they define themselves as anarcho-feminist, with goals to provide safe space for women and other discriminated communities.
“Not only a physical space, but also a place, a situation, and
condition we create to provide safe.”
- Needle n’ Bitch
In an interview with co-founder of the collective, we were informed of their difficulties to survive during the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of their activities were cancelled and their sales went down significantly. That’s why they had to temporarily move to a friend’s place to keep their physical safe space available. They also expressed concerns towards safety, as numerous events hosted by N&B were met by hostility from conservative groups. Without help from the police force, they had to protect themselves and were worried if this condition dissuades people to join their events.
condition we create to provide safe.”
“We are struggling for our survival right now”
Needle&Bitch collective, 24 december 2020
From this moment, we carried on our design with two parameters: the mobility,
and the camouflage.
We understood these terms as a spectrum, and wanted the design to be ongoingly changing its position within the spectrum. Given the info we gathered from the interview, we had the idea of developing a tool to enable quick and efficient mobility, that could both appease the risks of holding feminist events, and at the same time, could ease the ties of dependency on a property possession. Thinking over the political atmosphere about the police brutality, we decided to add one more parameter for our design. The Camuflage…
How about if we had a vehicle that could shift form, when surroundings aren’t safe?
.
It is a “safe-making portal”
For better or worse, a feminist collective is often associated with a safe space for woman, for that exactly is what is lacking in a patriarchal society.
The Protest Lab vehicles take different forms as they travel from the (unsafe) inner city to a (safer) rural area outside of the city.
The design revolves around the idea of creating safety through the ability of movement.
It is not the vehicle itself that transforms any location into a safe space, but rather about their activities being compacted and the vehicle camouflaged, so that they can move into a safe(r) space.
It is about relieving oneself from the dependency on a single place, as the ‘safety’ level of this place is not and will not always be predictable. For this reason, we reckon that safety comes from freely moving, being able to react at any moment.
It is a “nano-urban-myth
The Protest Lab will take different forms. One day it might appear to you as an ice cream hawker, another day as a pound shop. If you find them in their safe space, one day you will see the killjoys!
. 
It is the “makers-multiverse”
To make it possible to carry out activities in different ‘labs’ on a hawker bike, we developed a system inspired by Mary Maggic’s suitcases where tools for the labs are not attached to the bike but are
It is a “shapeshiftingmorphing lab”
The Myth of the Protest Lab starts in the camouflage mood with usually a single hawker, which might be (intentionally) mistaken for an ordinary ice-cream or balloon seller.
Although a single hawker has the capacity of carrying multi-labs, The Protest Suit ideally works as multiple vehicles that come together and weave their roof together, creating a larger killjoy space.
It is, in other words, the switch from nano-camouflage-mood to relieved-revelation mood. At this phase, more elements can join to expand the space further.
Circus Mode, the showing up mood. Makerspace is identifiable. Maybe making a statement invading a soccer field, or already at its safe space at the rural fields. Either way, the circus mood is where the vehicles are most expanding.
Courtyard Mode is a semi-private mood, in this example attached to a courtyard of a safely known private residence.
Bazaar Mode is the ultimate camouflage mood of the vehicle. Here is how to turn it into a food stand and disappear in a bazaar.
Bamboo sticks can serve as columns, pieces of fabric or truck tarpaulins are woven into a roof, reflector blankets cover the vehicle and act as a camouflage mirror,
and so on.
The Protest Lab is thought to manifest with materials that are as casual as possible, to make the camouflage more attainable and the myth appropriable.
project type
Mobile Micro-Lab
location
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
year
2021
.
team
Eléonore Hayar
Natasha Annisa
Sena Gür
network partners
Dr. Stefanie Wuschitz
Needle n’ Bitch
advisors
Dr. Moritz Ahlert
Prof. Dr. Florian Conradi
Dr. Michelle Christensen
Prof. Dr. Philipp Misselwitz
Global Makerspace(s) design studio at
Habitat Unit
Technische Universtät Berlin
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