Nicholas Elbakidze

This project is a joyous critique of Parsons, design academia, and the interior design profession. I question the curriculum I have encountered during my four years at this institution. I do this not as a form of retaliation but as a means of challenging the status quo and leaving my mark (albeit faint) on the 116-year legacy of this department. I critique; therefore, I care. My discipline does not dictate the medium. In my hands, to be “decorative” is to employ substance and style unapologetically, to reappropriate traditional modes of making, identities, and ways of assemblage that have been ignored by art history. As interior designers, we veneer space, objects, and bodies. The constructed environments around us display a language imprinted on them by designers using carefully chosen materials. By encasing one's body in "the decorative," one creates an opportunity to uncover and expose what has been hidden. My objects exist on the border between sculpture and decoration, expressing the everyday in material terms. My sculptural forms are singular actors, coming together in space to present a provocative performance.