Not Neutral - Sylvia's Final Project

Not Neutral. 2017. Polyester beige bed skirt, polyester “Brown Stone” panel curtains, digital photographs of in-store merchandise.

When I was thirteen, the first suburban mall was erected in my town. I can remember visiting this new, foreign land—the total environment that was the mall, for the first time. Being exposed to mainstream retailers, chain restaurants, and contemporary design trends on that day lead to my first conscious introduction to advanced capitalism. In turn, the mall and its fluctuating contents inadvertently rearranged hierarchal value systems, impacting the materialization of my identity. Also at this time, newly built houses proliferated like taupe microbes, which seemed to be comprised entirely of varying shades of beige. I pondered what these new aesthetic and materialist standards meant, and whether my life emulated any of it.

Over the course of my adulthood, I have observed the prevalence of neutral tones in design aesthetics and wondered if the neutrality of merchandise in a capitalist system is actually intended to function as a “neutral” backdrop for the lives of individuals. Or, oppositely, do beige people simply desire to disappear into beige walls? 

Since the advent of modernity, there has been speculation that capitalist aims realized in merchandise typically encourage apathy in consumers and thereby discourage self-determination. For this work, I assembled conventional domestic products, deconstructed them, and reassembled them into a subversive art object in order to explore the affect of commodification on the formation of my identity. As a result of this process, the object retains evidence of my labor, which defies mechanized processes that tend to eradicate such evidence. Furthermore, by utilizing commodities that remain somewhat recognizable, I aim to simultaneously induce a sense of familiarity and ambiguity regarding the identity of the maker. Ultimately this uncanny vagueness is significant, as the work examines the fluid nature of identity and individuality informed by extrinsic elements and circumstances. Specifically, this work critiques the concept of ‘beige’ as a proposed neutral in design trends—the asserted impartiality of which I believe encourages passivity and facilitates an oversimplification of states of being. As this piece includes materials purchased for use in my actual life (i.e. bed skirt, curtains), the work illustrates my preferences as a consumer, which have been channeled yet somehow stand as characterizations of my identity.