Plain Vanilla

As a space where society is reproduced and reorganised to a smaller scale, the house is a device to see the world. It is a place where to live while being protected, but at the same time it is filled with society pressure. To evoke that inside/outside frictional relationship I decided to focus on the consumer goods entry into the private sphere.

I took inspiration from the novel Things, a story of the sixties written by George Perec in 1965. The book is a story about the life of middle-class couple. Through the methodical description of their quotidian objects, Perec is criticizing his generation and what will become the consumption society.

Highlights from the 60s such as the creation of the Lego brick, the apparition of direct in-home sales and the deployment of instruction manuals coming alongside equipments, helped me build this series. Those inventions become a representation of an idealized and controlled comfort.

In a surrealist atmosphere, two apples on a sofa could be seen as crazy eyes. A range of pink papers reminds us about the perfect arrangement of newly built houses. Signs placed along the sequence give the sensation of a disorganised rebus. Belgian visual culture, referenced by comic books and surrealist paintings, influenced the work in a sense where objects and their representation are shifted.

Plain Vanilla is a photographic project describing an inner state of mind, the one of a generation focused on a materialistic wellness.

Fiona Crott (1991) is a Belgian photographer working between Lausanne and Brussels. She has graduated from both ECAL and ENSAV La Cambre. Her works were selected for a night projection during Riga Photomonth opening week. The event will take place on 9 May 10pm at Kaņepes Culture Centre in Riga.