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Destruction and Non-creation ⎯
[2023, ongoing]Leaving Wonderland
MFA Thesis project
HDK-Valand – Academy of Art and Design University of GothenburgWhat if we scattered everything into pieces to reclaim and rediscover women’s true sense of self?
Background of the projectCapitalist visual culture in public spaces have a significant impact on female sexuality by perpetuating unrealistic, sexualizing and objectifying representations of women. Visual media such as advertising, branding, and other forms of corporate messaging are used to promote the ideas and values of capitalism. Among many, the glorification of consumerism, competition, and perfectionism are the values capitalism promotes and these are the forms in which it is accountable for setting unrealistic standards for female sexuality.
Leaving Wonderland explores how the capitalist visual culture in public spaces and female sexuality can be challenged through design. This project focuses on revealing the hidden intertwined connections of capitalism, design, and female sexuality together with how (my) perfectionism is linked and hijacked the project. It is aiming to re-think what female sexuality — sexual feelings and thoughts, attraction and behavior towards others, sexual values, sexual orientation, and sexual identity — is and can be. In collaboration with myself and my body, I created a design project that aims to challenge the perfectionist norms of female sexuality in the capitalist system.
The design projectLeaving Wonderland uses critical-feminist design through a personal narrative to challenge capitalist visual culture in public spaces. It works with questions such as: How can capitalist visual culture in public spaces in relation to female sexuality be challenged through design? How can design help escape from our fabricated systemic reality?
Stepping away from mainstream design practices, Leaving Wonderland creates a statement which sees deconstruction as an interaction, and physical act, and non-creation as a form design. This project hasn’t been created to provide answers or solutions to certain issues, however it is here to reveal and encourage discussions about the importance of female sexuality.
Leaving Wonderland uses non-creation as a statement to critique capitalist values.
destructionDestruction as interaction is one of the outcomes of this project which can be interpreted as an act of dismantling my visual materials. This interactive act between me, women, capitalism, female sexuality, and visual culture is a proposal for dialogue through artistic means. I don’t refer to material destruction as a damaging act but as a tool to use to understand better one’s sexuality. What if we scattered everything into pieces to reclaim and find women’s true sense of self?
The project investigates the transformative power of destruction by its physical means. The act of destruction holds empowering movements in which the stakeholders can unlearn their perception of sexual norms. The result of the destruction is torn apart pieces of materials. These pieces hold stories and ideas and are the material evidence of my interactions. Parts of my experiments turn up on the scattered pieces of paper referring to the destructive notion of capitalist visual culture.
Non-creationNon-creation is a term I use to critically reflect on the role of design in relation to female sexuality. As graphic design is a crucial element in capitalist visual culture, it contributes to the creation of toxic beliefs and views of female sexuality. To recreate female sexuality, we do not only have to deconstruct the way we think about it but how design acts within it. By non-creation and destruction, I stand away from mainstream design practices.
Leaving Wonderland uses non-creation as a statement to critique capitalist values. Instead of contributing to our visual world with another design, I propose to stop producing. Non-creation can also be seen as a period of reflection that allows designers to understand and rethink their role in society. This act of withdrawal is a tool to embrace stagnation and to welcome freeing the mind from external influences.
My MA thesis can be downloaded here.
