“Believe Liar”: installation for Blickfang 2010

This project followed on from the Alfa Romeo commission of 2009. Nina was asked to design an installation for the Blickfang design exhibition held in Vienna in 2010 and out of this came Believe Liar.

This important installation embodies many of the themes which are evident throughout Nina’s work: the busy and intense style of design which covers the whole space with repeating, frantic, narrative blocks of illustration; the use of identical pattern on a range of domestic surfaces – walls, furniture and furnishings; and a subject matter that is based on the domestic sphere, in this case, the relationship of deception that exists at the core of one couple’s domestic life.

Believe Liar shows a snapshot in their lives – the domesticated wife at home, lost in dreams – perhaps paranoid dreams, perhaps naïve dreams, we cannot tell. The design around her tells a tale of betrayal – a husband who makes a morning visit to a prostitute. We see his own moral ambivalence and doubt – the head says ‘no’, the penis says ‘yes’. Within the installation as a whole, reality is hard to grasp. The whole scene has a dreamlike quality to it. The wife blends into the domestic setting and almost disappears. Indeed, only her bare legs are visible. At once this suggests her insignificance, the way in which the domestic life consumes and dehumanises. In this way, the deception becomes a defining part of her. Does she accept the situation? Is the situation real, or merely a figment of her bored or paranoid imagination? We do not know. We are not told. What remains is a feeling of the sickness and lifelessness at the core of the relationship.

This post is also available in: German