“Design is all about desire, but strangely this desire seems almost subject-less today, or at least lack-less; that is, design seems to advance a new kind of narcissism, one that is all image and no interiority - an apotheosis of the subject that is also its disappearance. Poor little rich man: he is 'precluded from all future living and striving, developing and desiring' in the neo-Art Nouveau world of total design and Internet plenitude.”

-Hal Foster, Design and Crime (And other Diatribes)

While there exists a symbiotic relationship between fine art with craft and design, the later has been scrutinized for its cultural value as an art practice. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of craftwork and artisanal products in urban spaces (perhaps due to the romanticization of craftivism and recognizable popularity of the “brooklyn brand”). Moreover, the process of aestheticization has come to be symbolic of contemporary maladies of capitalist consumer culture. As noted by Althea Black and Nicole Burisch, “For more than a century, craft has been positioned as both a fix and foil for capitalism and the alienating conditions of industrialization. Today the increased connections between craft, art, design, and manufacturing have paralleled dramatic shifts in the global economy, becoming virtually inseparable from capitalist modes of production and consumption.”