Desired

This project explores the cycle of desire, acquisition, discard, and revitalization that define consumer culture today. Using still life photography as my primary medium, I focus especially on luxury goods, objects that are designed to symbolize status and aspiration, to reveal the tension between how these items are marketed and how they ultimately live, be worn, and fade in everyday life. At the core of this work is a miniature of the life cycle of consumer goods: from pristine displays in glossy storefronts to the messy, mundane realities of ownership, and finally to the overlooked spaces of secondhand markets or waste. Through both staged and natural compositions, this project wants to discuss the viewer’s evaluation and perception of value: what makes an object desirable, and what defines its value once it is no longer new or loses its original label?

Beneath this question raised on the surface of consumer behavior, this project also hopes to extend an invitation to a more profound discussion, or even criticism, of overconsumption and mass consumption. Consumerism promises the sense of fulfillment through material acquisition. Yet, it creates a vicious cycle of never-ending dissatisfaction and excess at the same time. Considering physical evidence such as scratches, dust, and forgotten packaging left on, or from, these products, I wish to expose unsustainable habits concealed in our daily practice of buying and dumping. This project invites viewers to reflect on not only aesthetics and worth of luxury, but also impacts of a materialistic lifestyle that keeps taking more.