Awaiting, 2025
30.3 cm x 7cm
$1.25
Paper gift bag (found object)
Awaiting, a rectangular, light pink paper bag with muted yellow and brown, reflective dots on light and dark pink blending stripes. The bright pink paper handles are attached with several ribbons of different colors, including light pink, light blue, cream white, and gold. The top part of this rectangular paper bag has a rounded scalloped cut. It is from CADO, a gift packaging manufacturer and made in China, or from your home corners where you collect piles of gift bags that you have received.
The use value of this piece is to add value to another product. Awaiting is an incomplete piece to package another product. It aims to serve as an addition to the actual product with value. The cultural currency is a debate between gifting culture and excess, as Awaiting can be an embodiment of overconsumption or consumerism. Consumers in society often expect the delicate product they purchased, or the gift they receive from others, to be presented inside a gift bag, or wrapping paper. This can be a sense of excess as the gift bag is not necessarily needed, but it also connotes to happiness and excitement. The gift bag is more than just a paper bag. The shiny gold ribbon, playful patterns, and trimmed edges is ritualism, an extravagant way for the gift gifting person to show their effort in the gift. It functions as a symbol of happiness, but the receiver is excited because of the mysterious object inside the bag, not because of the bag.
Awaiting is photographed in a flat, unopened way because its shape is always unknown in the future. For now, it is thin and folded at the bottom, but as the valued product is being placed inside, Awaiting can be shaped in unknown ways.
Corry Ip