Learning to talk like an urban woodsman: an artistic intervention

Abstract

This paper is an artist's statement about the Re Made project, an artwork that parodies the urban woodsman aesthetic of Best Made Co., which markets designer axes through the rhetoric of authenticity, the appropriation of working-class identities and the revitalization of traditional male roles. Re Made Co. replace Best Made Co.’s $300 urban axe with a $300 toilet plunger and satirizes their marketing campaign through social media, graphic design, video and photography. This project uses critical design to pose pivotal questions, such as: What are the implications of transforming a useful tool into a symbolic object? How is working-class labor sold as white-collar fantasy? What are the contradictory references that promise “authentic” experiences? This paper analyzes the Best Made Co. brand's cultural references to masculinity, outdoorsmen and the frontier, their photographic language of snapshot images and designed aesthetic, reveals the consequences of these expressions, and proposes strategies for reassigning value.

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