2019
Showroom
Stories
Shown through the lens of one of the most circulated publications in the world, ‘Showroom Stories’ attempts to drop the veil of perfection, and highlight the imperfections and “real lives” of the seemingly everyday people of the IKEA world. Original stories about these fictitious people are juxtaposed with a ‘New Yorker’ article detailing the impact and reality of IKEA’s capitalization on curating the perfect home, all wrapped in an uncanny duplicate of an actual IKEA catalog.
Growing up, I watched a lot of television dramas and reality shows. The fast-paced, pop culture filled episodes were a great source of inspiration, which brought the characters of a fictitious world into the real world, albeit in a very dramatized way. With that, a satirical, non-serious, slightly humorous and eerily uncanny IKEA catalog was born in the name of having fun. The process of creating this catalog brought an immense appreciation to those who create publications—from authors and editors, to those designing every last detail of the interior and hand-binding it all. I’m by no means a writer and never imagined writing fictional stories, but the experience was overall very fun.
Chapter Excerpt