consumerism

Young adults in the U.S. are experiencing languishing—a state of emotional stagnation and diminished well-being—often driven by a culture of consumerism that converts sadness into overconsumption. This thesis project introduces the concept of a gift community, designed to empower individuals to recognize, give, and receive personal gifts within a supportive network of members. By fostering connections and encouraging personal development, the gift community aims to enhance well-being and reduce overconsumption. Using frameworks like Design Thinking, Systems Thinking, Biomimicry, and the PERMA model, the project explores the structure and function of the gift community. It outlines the stages of implementation, including a grant proposal to secure funding for further development. The gift community offers members the opportunity to flourish through personal development and social connections, prioritizing meaningful relationships and personal growth over material possessions.

Thomas Hine writes about the relationships between people and the objects they desire, buy and use. His work on materialism and its meaning has appeared in many magazines, and his six books have been recognized as important contributions to their fields. He has been praised in the New Yorker by John Updike for his “mischievously alert sensibility,” and "Populuxe," a word he coined to describe some of the styles and enthusiasms of post-World War II America, has entered the language and now appears in several dictionaries. Among his books are Populuxe, an examination of what newly prosperous Americans thought and bought during the post-World War II era, The Total Package, an examination of how persuasive containers shape people’s understandings of products and themselves, and The Great Funk: Falling Apart and Coming Together (On a Shag Rug) in the 1970s. He was as multimedia editor of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, and he has helped organize exhibitions on design and culture for museums in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, Miami, Denver, Washington, and Philadelphia. He was architecture and design critic of the Philadelphia Inquirer for 23 years and is currently the newspaper’s chief art critic. He is a graduate of Yale and lives in Philadelphia.

Starting with the creation of Myspace, I delve into my history with loneliness and the new "Social Photo" as defined by social media theorist, Nathan Jurgensen. Thinking about our new form of communication and the history of the photograph, I look at how the work of photographers Nan Goldin and Bill Owens approach truth in their work. Comparing our common desire for connection to an image that depicts an honest reality, I approach my work as a photographic installation artist with the background of social media. Equating this form of experience to the creation of the Disneyland theme park, viewed as the crux of the new social image, I examine how experience is upheld on social platforms that perpetuates loneliness, boredom, and consumerism in our app-obsessed time of post truth, and how those thoughts can change if we learn from those experiences and sit with our difficult emotions.

I am a sculptor living and working in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My source of inspiration comes from an interest with American values as they pertain to varied perceptions or definitions of "The American Dream." In some instances means having bigger fancier things than your neighbor. Utilizing consumer goods, I activate a visual dialogue that pits material against value, asking the viewer to evaluate their relationships to objects and priorities. These materials and subjects include processed foods and food packaging, cheap interior "McMansion" materials, and various plastics associated with swimming pool culture, juxtaposed with fine art contexts. Following minimalist guidelines in both object based and installation works, I disassemble, reassemble, distort and wrap various forms in these exploited materials. Referencing interior and exterior spaces, the objects we choose to surround ourselves with extend our preconceived biases as they upgrade/downgrade perceived statuses and facades. We place importance in aesthetics for molding our identities, surrendering reality to maintain appearances, inevitably exposing our insecurities.

This project develops a potential sustainable circular economic model, along with the design of a product service system which leverages frameworks of sustainable design. The deliverable of the project is a business model canvas that details a circular value proposition, as well as a website mock-up. Additionally, research and evaluation was conducted on existing products and product claims, customer values and needs, and how a service will provide a more sustainable solution to a necessary, but rapidly growing market.