Art-based Research of Consumer Culture

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the combination of consumer culture research and art-based research through an example of an existing cross-disciplinary project, as a part of which researchers created an interactive art installation Shopping at Capitalist Peace. In exploring the example and tying it into existing literature, we suggest that the combination of the two traditions can be beneficial in the development of both consumer culture research and art-based research. We propose that in using the approaches together, researchers can engage in a methodological framework that allows and urges interactive, contextualized, and reflexive co-creation of knowledge among participants. Moreover, this framework becomes a fitting tool for exploring themes of consumer culture, which involve norms and structures inherent to our daily lives, yet ones that we are often blind to due to their naturalisation.