Abstract
The paper will tease out a number of tensions including domestic product design and designed domesticity, particularly within the post World War 2 emphasis of embracing electricity into the home with all of its concomitant ‘labour saving’ devices. Pre –Apartheid South Africa will be used as a context for a domestic engagement of a different kind – one in which black African maids in a starched white aprons and headscarfs worked silently as the best of white goods were promoted as doing. This situation flew in the face of emerging modernist tendencies. It created the unresolved tension between the white madam, the black maid and white-boxed appliance.
Citation
Connellan, K., and Moss, J. (2004) Power to the People: Electricity and Domestic Design., in Redmond, J., Durling, D. and de Bono, A (eds.), Futureground - DRS International Conference 2004, 17-21 November, Melbourne, Australia. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2004/researchpapers/73
Power to the People: Electricity and Domestic Design.
The paper will tease out a number of tensions including domestic product design and designed domesticity, particularly within the post World War 2 emphasis of embracing electricity into the home with all of its concomitant ‘labour saving’ devices. Pre –Apartheid South Africa will be used as a context for a domestic engagement of a different kind – one in which black African maids in a starched white aprons and headscarfs worked silently as the best of white goods were promoted as doing. This situation flew in the face of emerging modernist tendencies. It created the unresolved tension between the white madam, the black maid and white-boxed appliance.