Consuming IKEA: Inspiration as Material Form

Abstract

Since its launch of furniture retail in 1965, IKEA as a transnational corporation is variously projected as a purveyor of either accessible design or a standardized flatpack “monolithic tyranny of aesthetics” (Hartman 2009: 492). IKEA could be seen as a new effervescence of the ‘international style’, perpetuating homogenous domestic environments on a global scale; it is commonly projected as ‘everywhere the same’, lacking easily identifiable forms of specific local articulation. People readily subscribe to this view, comparing IKEA Malaysia to its equivalent in Moscow without pausing for breath. But the very accessibility for which it is credited is often articulated as double-edged, such as encouraging transience, facilitating waste, valorizing the superficial over the real. In a recent article, for example, it is argued that IKEA perpetuates solitary and individualistic practices through the pursuance of fictional DIY identities in the home (Hartman 2007). In this argument, IKEA is not only a noun but a verb: ‘IKEAization’ we are told is “[...] necessarily a disengagement with the collective sphere, a sense that the most beneficial work is carried out when one is sheltered from, rather than an active participant in, social reality” (2007: 493). Bright and breezy IKEA merchandise, Hartman suggests, wallpapers over the fissures in contradictory selfconstruction and sociopolitical unrest. The collective is left behind in transitory, solitary fantasies.