With You

With You – is an alarm designed to help people living in relationships where violence occurs.

THANKS TO: Erica Jonsér, sociologist; Emilia Dahlström, sociologist; Jonathan Foster, cinematography; Matilda Lindstam Nilsson, actor.

Violence in close relationships increases in conjunction with football matches, for example, and with school holidays and now during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s true all over the world. In China, there were three times as many police reports of violence in close personal relationships in February of 2020 compared to the same month in the previous year. In most of these cases, it’s women who have been abused by men with whom they are having or have had a relationship. In 2019, sixteen women died in Sweden as a result of violence in couple relationships. To talk about this openly, to remove the guilt and the shame from the victim and provide help, can save lives.

In my thesis project, I have asked myself the question of how I as a designer can create a product that both sounds an alarm and creates evidence by ensuring that more people are witness to the crime. The lack of evidence and witnesses is often the reason an investigation is dropped. During my process, I have been helped by Erica Jonsér, a sociologist with many years of experience working with this subject. She has helped me both by showing how reality looks for a victim of abuse and by discussing ideas and solutions with me.