Final year dissertation titled "Indian matchbox labels: Shining a new light on kitsch, art and the economy". All text and supporting images are screenprinted and hand-bound into a book slightly larger than A3.
This is a study of Indian matchbox labels from over 50 years ago. India’s post-colonial phenomenon has been the rise of consumer culture and therefore the rise of what we know as the middle class. As a result of this growing middle class and globalisation, aspirations of today are far more diverse than what they once were, and commercial products and design are made for their consumption, no longer aimed at a rural uneducated India. The matchbox labels recreated in this document hold a peculiar reality that is bizarre, curious and often perplexing to the modern eye as they still embody rudimentary values, border-lining the transition from folk to consumer culture.