waste from sports equipment: foams, boxing bag fillings and lightweight polystyrene foam
By 2028, China’s economy will have overtaken that of the US, and amateur and Olympic boxing will probably be removed from the list of sports at the Los Angeles Olympics. However, even if this doesn’t happen, female boxers will still be required to wear helmets, despite them having already been proven to do more harm than good.
In amateur (Olympic) boxing, the compulsion to fight in helmets applies only to women and children. Wearing head protection not only creates a false sense of security and limits vision, but by its design can cause increased brain injury. Kucharczak made a scaled-down boxing helmet. It was constructed from waste materials from sports equipment: foam, boxing bag fillings and lightweight Styrofoam. Although the head protection here is illusory, the interior of the helmet functions as a safe space. Spectators can enter it and experience what boxing associations want to provide juniors and female fighters – an illusive sense of security. After all, a sense of fear can also be reduced. The shape of the presented structure, however, does not resemble fully functional equipment. Imitation of a helmet by its deformation exposes to us what is inside. Through its scale, it can be compared to a dome or architectural skeleton. It is not the equipment of one side of the fight, but rather a hybrid created by combining the colours of the two fighters (during the tournament).
wiktoriakucharczak 