DO IT YOUR SELF

Do-it-your-self, 2012, view from the site specific installation, wall painted with color paint made from the dust from the site

Do-it-your-self, 2012, view from the site-specific installation, wall painted with color paint made from the dust from the site

 

Do-It-Your-Self poses a question: What is the true color of a home?

Can that be a white, pink or the ultimate designer choice of creamy “Champagne Kisses”?
In marketing strategies paint companies give colors poetic names to recall nature, seasons and romantic places, suggesting the true expression of individual self. It promises to bring fulfillment and peace by evoking the atmosphere of natural harmony. Contrary to the slogans, the paint is used to cover the real context, hiding the nature and history of the place and in most cases being a very toxic chemical substance, which is not natural at all.

Do-It-Your-Self seeks the site-specific color, which would represent the nature of the site where it is applied – the home.  As part of the Do-It-Your-Self project, Kristyna and Marek Milde created a wall paint made out of dust collected on the site. Dust as s a pigment it naturally occurring domestic material, one that is strictly eliminated. However, in this project, it becomes a valuable substance producing a color, which contains particles tracing all activities happening on the site. Consisting of small pieces of all possible things including parts of human skin and hair blended with soil and dirt it is the perfect mixture, which connects the outside and inside environment.

Do-it-your-self  was realized on various locations including the artist’s home as part of the Bushwick Open Studios in 2011, it continued as a workshop and presentation “Thoughts on the LivingRoom” at the MoMA Studio, NYC in 2012, where participants created  color samples made with dust from their homes  and in the Karlin Studios in Prague as part of Milde’s solo exhibition Homescapes in 2013, where the entire entrance area was painted with dust collected on the site, shown together with samples from the workshop at MoMA.

DIY explores cultural mechanisms in the domestic space that employ decoration as a mediator to the outside world. It focuses on the attempt through colors and paints to connect the life within the alienated environment of the interior of the white cube to a larger context. For the new species: “Homo Interius”, a contemporary human, who spends most of its life inside of a white cube separated from the influence of the surrounding environment, colors represent the features of the outside world, from which he is disconnected. Home decoration, souvenirs, and art functions as a replacement to the outside world context but in reality, they rather seal the alienation of the petite bourgeois environment. The Do-It-Your-Self is a strategy that follows the immediate presence on site and may be applied virtually in any interior by anyone who is interested in exploring what color his life has. The Do-It-Your-Self project gives an easy to follow a recipe for making a paint made with dust that may be applied virtually in any interior by anyone who is interested in exploring what color his life has.

 

 

 

 


 

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Comments (3)

3 Responses to “DO IT YOUR SELF”

  1. Sibay says:
    August 15, 2011 at 7:10 am

    Your web is really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your site to come back later on. Cheers

  2. Clyman says:
    July 30, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    I’m really loving the critical approach to the design! Keep the good work.

  3. Barton Effler says:
    July 11, 2011 at 2:14 pm

    This project is just astonishing!