Back Arrow Icon

Stained Underwear

A data visualization that sheds light on the amount of time and labor that goes into period care.
Skills
Electronics, C++, Fabrication
Recognition

Work-in-progress exhibited at the University of Virginia

Link to Project
Collaborators
Pepi Ng
Year
2024
Concept
Stained Underwear is a kinetic sculpture and performance piece that sheds light on the stigmatized and under-discussed topic of period care. Real-time period data - the time and effort Pepi spend on period care each day during their fifteen day long period - is visualized by seven sinks with robot arms scrubbing their period-stained underwear. By bringing period data from behind closed doors into public spaces we want to reclaim the power of the body, flesh and blood against the existing patriarchal structures of Period Tax, and the lack of free access to menstrual products.
No items found.
Technical Aspects
  • [find full code, instructions and wiring diagram on Github Link provided above]
  • The robot arm is made of 3 servo motors, all controlled by an Arduino Uno
  • The Arduino stores Pepi's data, and keeps track of the time with an RTC Time Module.
  • The faucet turns on and off using a DC water pump and a transistor.
First green Prototype of the Robot Arm!
Proud me after Pepi and I built a pretty wooden Box
Late-night wiring!
Absolute CHAOS in my apartment after the completion of Stained Underwear V2!