“She thought about how no one had taught us to grow old, how we didn’t know what it would be like. When we were young we thought of old age as an ailment that affected only other people. While we, for reasons never entirely clear, would remain young. We treated the old as though they were responsible for their condition somehow, as though they’d done something to earn it, like some types of diabetes or arteriosclerosis. And yet this was an ailment that affected the absolute most innocent.”
I was re-shelving returns during my first shift at the library, earlier in the year, when a particular dewey decimal code led me to the location of Naomi Klein’s No Logo. Feeling compelled, I duly swapped one book for another.
It’s been twenty years since this book was first published, so it doesn’t shock in the way I imagine it once did. Yet its basic tenets are still relevant – the rise of corporate branding since the 80s has seen the hijacking of the public domain, co-optation of culture and community, the duplicity of ‘choice’ as conglomerates dominate, and the outsourcing of employment and along with it risk, responsibility and rights – no space, no choice, no jobs.
In response to the book, The Economist titled its September 8th, 2001, issue ‘Pro Logo: Why brands are good for you’ and ran its lead story ‘Who’s wearing the trousers?’. As its title suggests, the article argues that in our increasingly competitive brandscape consumers hold the power, “Brands fall from grace and newer, nimbler ones replace them”.
While it is true that we ‘vote’ through our purchases, it can be difficult to align our ‘vote’ with our values, without the full picture. ‘Brand’ is always an edited narrative, which can be as much about concealment as it is about articulation. From the context of lockdown, it has been a relief to escape the noise. In the Brave New World we have the opportunity to rebuild when we emerge, I would hope for two things:
greater respect for physical spaces in the public domain, where educational institutions, parks, public transport and infrastructure would remain free of advertising or product placement
consumer demand for transparency ensures that only ethical brands survive
MR took me to Kettle’s Yard for my birthday ? without either of us knowing too much about it. I had seen the identity developed by Apfel, and our landlord Nina had mentioned it. Excerpts on its history from the website below.
Between 1958 and 1973 Kettle’s Yard was the home of Jim and Helen Ede. In the 1920s and 30s Jim had been a curator at the Tate Gallery in London. Thanks to his friendships with artists and other like-minded people, over the years he gathered a remarkable collection, including paintings by Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Alfred Wallis, Christopher Wood, David Jones and Joan Miró, as well as sculptures by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Constantin Brancusi, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.
At Kettle’s Yard Jim carefully positioned these artworks alongside furniture, glass, ceramics and natural objects, with the aim of creating a harmonic whole. His vision was of a place that should not be
“an art gallery or museum, nor … simply a collection of works of art reflecting my taste or the taste of a given period. It is, rather, a continuing way of life from these last fifty years, in which stray objects, stones, glass, pictures, sculpture, in light and in space, have been used to make manifest the underlying stability.”
Kettle’s Yard was originally conceived with students in mind. Jim kept ‘open house’ every afternoon of term, personally guiding visitors around his home. In 1966 he gave the House and its contents to the University of Cambridge. In 1970, three years before the Edes retired to Edinburgh, the House was extended, and an exhibition gallery added. The House is by and large as Jim left it. There are artworks in every corner, and there are no labels.
