Woven Streets
In Rotterdam, women and other marginalised groups still frequently experience street harassment and a lack of safety. Woven Streets, a project by designer Shruthi Venkat, explores how these communities can shape their own understanding of safety through wearable technology and collective imagination. Not through cameras or surveillance, but through care, solidarity and community power.
In many cities, technology is used to increase safety. Cameras, sensors and monitoring systems are meant to create a stronger sense of security in public space. Yet in practice, more technology does not automatically lead to more safety. Rotterdam, for example, has the highest number of security cameras in the Netherlands, but also the highest number of reported cases of street harassment. This raises the question: what does safety actually mean, and for whom?
Starting from that question, Shruthi Venkat organised workshops in which groups of women came together to share their experiences of safety in the city. Participants talked about safety, reflected on situations they had encountered and discussed how they protected themselves and stayed safe. Rather than approaching technology as a tool for control, they explored how it could support ownership and autonomy. The workshops invited participants to create objects: wearable designs that could offer a sense of protection or control. The variety of outcomes made clear that safety means something different to everyone: protection, visibility, shielding or empowerment.
Based on the workshop results, five sets of objects were developed as conversation starters about what safety means to us, how we imagine the future, and how we can build better cities—using technology that gives us ownership and autonomy, rather than simply tracking and monitoring us.
Explore Woven Streets or other projects at df-veiligheid.nl