THE COST OF BELONGING IN THE STORY OF SUCCESS
DROP 03 / EXHIBITION + PUBLICATION
An exhibition and publication exploring inherited values, domestic memory, care, and the performance of success.
This thesis explores the tension between two inherited value systems: one grounded in domestic memory, care, and the slow continuity of keeping; and another defined by measurement, achievement, and the performance of success.
This installation reconstructs my childhood bedroom as a space where ideas of value, care, and belonging were first shaped, and where they can now be reinterpreted. My childhood bedroom is, I believe, my earliest site of identity formation. It is where private routines, emotions, and unspoken forms of labour quietly accumulated. This bedroom is where most of my grounding thoughts and values I still hold onto were formed. By restaging this space, I create a setting to examine and unmake those inherited ideas
The Sheets: Rewritten News as
Soft Material
The bedsheet and pillow are printed with my rewritten versions of the news I grew up with. The original articles were about stories about environmental loss, land being cleared, lakes drying, and development projects expanding which shaped my understanding of progress as something linear and non-negotiable.
By cutting, collaging, and rewriting these narratives, then transferring them onto fabric, I strip them of their former authority. What was once hard, factual, and external becomes intimate and pliable. The sheets become a surface where public narratives merge with private memory. They act as a record of how I once absorbed these stories without fully seeing their consequences, and how I now reinterpret them through care, critique, and softness.
The Puzzle Pieces: Fragments of
Invisible Labour
Covering the walls and windows are puzzle-piece forms engraved with entries from my invisible labour ledger. These are the small, continuous actions that hold life together; gestures of repair, emotional regulation, maintenance, and attentiveness that rarely register as “value” in dominant systems.
By laser-cutting these writings into chipboard puzzle pieces, I render them visible, tactile, and unignorable. The puzzle form emphasizes interdependence: each piece matters, nothing stands alone, and meaning emerges through connection. What is usually unnoticed becomes architectural and literally shaping the room.
Why a Bedroom
The bedroom becomes the bridge between these two worlds: the rewritten public stories on the bed, and the unrecognized private stories on the walls.
This space holds both the narratives imposed on me and how that shaped my core values. The installation offers a slow, reflective environment where value is not measured through achievement or output, but through continuity, care, and the small gestures that form a life.
