IKEA-Land: A Counter-Catalogue

Abstract This research operates at the crossroads of architectural and design history, material culture, and capitalist studies, scrutinizing how consumerism conditions global domestic interiors through the lens of IKEA, the world’s largest furnishing company. Both artistic and scholarly, this article created for “Explorations,” draws attention to “IKEA-Land,” a term coined to denote moments and spaces pervaded by fiction, an enveloping force according to which, through seemingly natural behaviors, users become consumers. The study delves into IKEA’s creation of fictional, immersive atmospheres; the vast corporate structure echoing that of other late-capitalist entities; and the postmodern appropriative behavior of this corporation. Comprising a diary and a visual essay, this interdisciplinary article—the outcome of a larger project, one segment of which was carried out in collaboration with photographer Philipp Schell—aims to immerse the reader-viewer in the manipulative reality of IKEA-designed spaces in a not-too-academic verbal fashion, as experienced firsthand during fieldwork. These components serve as tools to narrate corporate history differently while working with the protocols imposed by multinational companies for access to information and departments. Through disorienting images and diaristic notes, this piece seeks to question the curated narrative of IKEA and acts as a “counter-catalogue” to the otherwise familiar, crafted reality.