- Title
- A bargain that dissolves into a poem unwritten: a critique of bargain retail practices and homemaking through critical design
- Creator
- Hawley, Ami Jessica
- Subject
- Stores, Retail -- Designs and plans -- South Africa
- Subject
- Interior decoration -- South Africa House furnishings -- South Africa -- 20th century Furniture -- South Africa Store decoration Interior architecture
- Date Issued
- 2019
- Date
- 2019
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MTech
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10948/40349
- Identifier
- vital:36146
- Description
- Although bargains commonly manifest as loud advertisements and trivial objects, as a moment of exchange they provide a basis to critique economic relations and judgements of taste. This research presents a document study of “bargains” in the context of bargain retail practices and homemaking, illustrated in the case of OK Furniture in South Africa; further situated by Julier’s study of economy and class within design culture, and Bourdieu’s fields of cultural production. The investigation builds to a discussion of the research practice, alluded to in the research project’s title, “A bargain that dissolves into a poem unwritten”. The title is an entry from this practice’s journal that conveys how the everyday experience of a bargain might find a connection to poetry when its exchange is seen as a performance; as a moment or encounter “unwritten”, capable of generating different modes of meaning and sociability. Using critical design strategies, the research practice explores the manifesting discountproduct cultures and retail practices associated with homes as a way to inhabit richer interpersonal relationships and unscripted sociability. This is discussed through four critical design proposals and 26 thought experiments, resulting in Text me when you see this, an online concept store that sells bargains, personal agreements, quality time, conversation and curio: www.textmewhenyouseethis.com. The research explores the limits to a bargain’s economic and emotional exchange by asking What if a bargain represented other forms of sociability, and How else might this mode of exchange look? These questions are used in the critique to model critical design towards both poetic expression and pragmatic embodiment of criticality in the project of reflecting on everyday life and what it might “dissolve into”.
- Format
- x, 145 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- Nelson Mandela University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Arts
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Nelson Mandela University
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Collections
NMU School of Music, Art and Design
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Ami Jessica Hawley.pdf | 21 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |