Wheat is Wheat is Wheat, on view at Museum of Craft and Design through June 15, explores the interstice of design and ethics, and examines the designer's role in a field designated to give shape to an idea, while recruited to effectively serve economic interests.
Peddy Mergui exaggerates the aesthetic and conceptual triggers that influence consumer trends and manipulate the relationship between an object and an ideal. Through the creation of supermarket environment vignettes, in which products are re-branded, Mergui presents basic grocery items with well-known luxury labels and aesthetics, effectively turning a viewer's perception of quality on its head.
Works in the series borrow their forms from the world of consumption and their concepts from the field of consumer ethics. They expose the often arbitrary connection that a product has to its packaging, and the conditions in which a designer operates.
Consumer validation is a recurring theme for Mergui; what does a customer actually purchase when he or she pays top dollar for a "Brand" of wheat flour, or table salt? Does the consumer place higher value on the packaging than the condition of the item inside and its ability to fulfill its advertised need?