In 2016, Yi-Fei Chen was a graduate student at the Design Academy Eindhoven when something happened that stayed with her.
During a critique, a confrontation with her tutor left her frozen.
She didn’t argue.
She didn’t defend herself.
She couldn’t even speak.
All she could do… was cry.
Raised in Taiwan with a deep respect for authority, she had been taught that disagreeing with a teacher was disrespectful. So she stood there in silence, overwhelmed, feeling completely powerless.
But she didn’t forget that moment.
Turning Tears Into Power
Instead of burying it, she turned it into her graduation project.
She built something no one expected.
A device called the Tear Gun.
Made from brass and silicone, it collects tears directly from under the eye, freezes them into solid pellets using carbon dioxide, and launches them using a spring mechanism.
It took her three months to create the first working prototype.
She called it self-defense.
Not a Weapon — A Message
The Tear Gun isn’t designed to hurt anyone.
It’s art.
A raw, uncomfortable idea made physical — what happens when emotion has nowhere to go.
Instead of hiding vulnerability, she transformed it into something visible, controlled… and powerful.
As she put it:
She didn’t want to stop crying.
She wanted to use it.
From Silence to Global Attention
The project was later exhibited at Dutch Design Week 2016 and displayed at the Taiwan Design Museum.
It quickly drew international attention — not because of what it does, but because of what it represents.
A moment of silence.
Turned into a statement.
No Words Needed
Some people fight back with arguments.
Some walk away.
And some take the one thing that made them feel weak…
and turn it into something impossible to ignore.
Sometimes the strongest message you can send
doesn’t come from what you say.