Uncovered Stories: A Campaign With the Aim to Tell Iranian Women's Stories
Uncovered Stories is the outcome of the D&AD brief to pick an issue we care about and use typography to raise awareness/ be a call to action for this. I was aware that women in Iran were protesting for their rights, but upon further research, discovered that this is a very deep rooted and complex situation.
To summarise, Iran has a group of people who police what people wear and how they 'behave' in public, they are known as the 'Morality Police'. In recent years, they have become much more strict and abusive towards Iranian women in particular. They are arresting, beating, abusing and torturing women- often for 'incorrectly' wearing a hijab. This happened to Mahsa Amini, who was killed in detention by the Morality Police. Since, protests have erupted and more and more Iranian women are suffering at the hands of those in power.
Even worse? The Iranian Government silences them. Through social media black outs and a fear of being persecuted, Iranian women do not have the freedom to share their stories with the world without risking their lives. Uncovered Stories is a campaign which helps to tackle this, by allowing their truth's to be heard.
The first point of activation is a series of campaign posters. These each feature a square piece of silk with a quote from a genuine Iranian women. This represents a hijab, and the individual's voice. Key words have been censored with their Persian equivalent, prompting the viewer to find out more by visiting the campaign website and demonstrating the frustrations of not being able to speak freely.
On top of this, the same censorship is used over key words on Netflix shows, as well as social media sites. These also promote the campaign and encourage people to visit the campaign website.
At the campaign website, they can then interact with the words to reveal the entire stories from the posters:
(A clip of this working can be viewed at the bottom of this page)
There is also a section in which Iranian women can anonymously share their stories. This allows them to speak out with the knowledge they will be safe. Meaning that others around the world can hear the uncensored truth. They can then choose to react to these stories with a selection of supportive emojis- bridging the gap to create a sense of community and an online safe space.
The final section is one which allows others to show their support through a number of ways including: adding their name to a support list (which would then be handed to the UN), donating or sending a message to be displayed on a live billboard. These billboards help to make this a more circular campaign, as they then direct a new audience back to the campaign website.
To view all of this in action, please watch the full entry video below:
