Home Life: Cultivating a Domestic Aesthetic

Abstract

Home Life is an exploration of environmental aesthetics as it applies to the domestic realm. I consider Kevin Melchionne’s argument that through notions of taste, grace, and performance, everyday domestic chores can become heightened artistic practices. I argue that this does not go far enough in overcoming the traditional view of art as aesthetically superior to popular or everyday artefacts and practices; rather, it encourages the limitations of traditional aesthetics values within the domestic setting. Through examples, including Pauliina Rautio’s study on laundry, I consider the possibility that domestic practices are made up of actions that are not performed with a viewer in mind but are completed out of necessity or desire. Synthesizing Arnold Berleant’s engagement and Richard Shusterman’s soma-aesthetics, I argue that, in addition to sensory engagement, imagination and memory play a crucial role in our experience of domestic life.

Keywords

• body-centred environmental aesthetics
• domestic engagement
• everyday aesthetics