Thea Hallak

Until today, domestic work remains an undermined and vulnerable labour. In the UK, domestic work is not acknowledged as work, and domestic workers are not acknowledged as workers. Thus they, do not benefit from mere workers’ rights such as health and safety, the right to a minimum wage, or moderate working hours. Being tied to their employers by a 6 months visa and under those conditions, their situation fits in what would be called “modern slavery”. They lack power and recognition.

The aim of this project is to design a vacuum cleaner, in conversation with cleaners, ladies from the organization ‘Justice for Domestic Workers’ (J4DW). 

The design process I choose is not one but a fusion of many approaches. It starts with the area of participatory design 

(Liz Sanders, Ramia Maze) that involves the experienced stakeholder, here, the domestic worker from J4DW, in the design 

process, towards the making of a vacuum cleaner. The process also walks in the area of critical design, where I make/ bring provocative objects to the conversation table with my participants, for them to test the objects and feedback into them or extract stories they provoke/ evoke. This is when the critical design approach feeds back into co-design (participatory) by bringing generative tools to the process with my participants, for them to manipulate and be creative around.

This project is about domestic work, domestic workers and the domestic objects they use in their daily routine. The vacuum cleaner is for the cleaner worker, about the cleaner, and designed with the cleaner.