The Desire for Ikea
5th Sept 2021
by Marc Nair
A human from Ikea replied to my question. Didn't answer it but replied.
It took 6 days, 15 hours, & 1 minute.
I will update when I get an actual answer.
Sharing this datapoint so you won't be discouraged. Or so you will. Not sure.
Robin Rheaume on Facebook
It is the scent of Ikea that births the first inklings of longing.
It is the scent of flat pack furniture in the self-serve furniture area
being pulled from its shelf, laid on wooden pallets
and loaded into yawning trucks.
It is crates and containers of a new season’s catalogue
arriving and being unpeeled from plastic,
assembled and readied for display in the showroom.
A growing desire for familiar things with strange names
begins to envelop and encompass.
You have come to purchase a spatula, (GUBBRÖRA, $1.90),
but find yourself reaching for other objects,
justifying each one with a vague household reason.
The desire for Ikea grows when walking
from one picture-perfect bedroom to another,
gazing at each ideal, self-contained capsule
of well-arranged objects.
Except for the shells of books and running water,
the idea is that nothing more is needed.
Not one cup, not one new shirt will be purchased.
The desire for Ikea is the stasis of status quo.
Purchasing an entire house composed of Ikea is a declaration
that desire is complete, a closed loop.
Nothing needs to be added to it.
And so Ikea leads us to the conflict embodied by desire;
we see what is an ideal, apprehend it in relation
to a world of similar objects, an ‘Ikeasation’ of reality.
But when we bring that object home, it sits against
everything else that we have,
often a mishmash of things.
Nothing is as uniform, nothing as perfect.
Perhaps Ikea is not a place that is bound by reality.
Are there real people working there?
Are they also named after rivers and forests?
