Open House
If you have driven through the streets of most suburbs, you have seen the row houses of equivalent design, decoration, and setback. Such standardization seems depressing to you, but the important thing is that it seems even more depressing to the suburbanite. As a consequence, an enormous amount of effort has been spent by suburbanites to make their homes different from those on either side and across the street. The more identical things are, the more he seeks some distinctive touch to symbolize and validate any particular tract house as his house.
Donaldson, Scott. The Suburban Myth. Columbia University Press, New York. 1969.

This work examines, through a series of large-scale colour photographs of suburban home interiors, a cultural climate that has become increasingly inundated with products and messages that sell individualism through interior home decor choices. Prime time television shows feature glamorous personalities, touting new products and design ideas to improve and excite bland homes and lives. Newsstands are laden with dozens of glossy magazines that further emphasize the need to acquire star quality through seemingly simple modifications. Building supply stores have been reborn as acre-sized slick home design and decorating utopias, offering a continuous stream of products, furnishings, and how-to demonstrations on every aspect of creating a perfect home. North American consumers have thus become accustomed to equating social identity and notions of individuality with marketed consumer goods.

In making this work, I was curious as to whether it is possible for individuals to acquire and to display consumer goods in order to delineate space and to establish an identity that is significantly unique. I was particularly interested in ornamentation and decoration, and thus I approached each interior as if on an archaeological dig, working on the assumption that every detail is rich material evidence. The interiors offer a voyeuristic look at a culture that is defined by its concomitant culture of consumerism, where individuality is expressed through choices made in shopping malls, and where purchases can represent value systems, the dissolution of tradition, and a collapse between elite art and popular culture. On the one hand, the photographs attest to a basic desire for self expression. On the other hand, they reveal an irony: How is it possible for a person’s sense of autonomy and place to be described through pastiche, paint, or ornaments that are themselves mass-produced, heavily marketed substitutes for true artisan practices?

Click the images to enlarge.