The 2023 iphiGenia Gender Design Award “Volition” goes to Rising Lai.
Re-coding of objects to embrace gender-diversity
In the design research project “Crafting Desire: Queering the Red Sleep Bed”, young designer Rising Lai revisits the famous slogan “The personal is political” to discuss identity, family values and the material world: Through critical making, they transform this artifact from assisting patriarchy to embracing gender diversity and therefore receives the Gender Design Award in the Category Volition.
In this project the designer explores how an artifact carries on group consciousness arranged in the domestic environment. Narrating from a queer perspective, Rising Lai aims to reveal the untold, oppressive stories of the Red Sleep Bed, which is a traditional Taiwanese bed furniture. As a dowry, the craft of the Red Sleep Bed documents the ideal projection of marriage from family and society – gender role, patriarchy, fertility, heterosexuality. As a bed, the design of the Red Sleep Bed entangled with Taiwanese languages, customs, and religions, affording a standard way of living. By reconfiguring the elements used in the Red Sleep Bed, they build a queer heritage to reflect and respond to the exclusivity in material culture.
The jury was convinced by the original curated process, the strategic way to work with queer perspective, as well as by the particularly gender-sensitive video stories and exhibition that express it.
https://graduation.kabk.nl/2022/rising-lai
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/queering-traditional-object-igdn/