Dortmund: Verlag Kettler, 2016
Condition: New, Sealed, 14,8×21cm, 124pages, Hardcover
Manuals contain a lot of special knowledge on a wide variety of topics and instruction manuals offer practical solutions in every situation. The Irish photographer Jan McCullough is fascinated by manuals. A book from the 1950s entitled "How to make the Home you want" eventually became the spark for an unusual project. Inspired by the book's suggestions on how to make a home feel good, McCullough decides to rent a vacant flat in a Belfast suburb and search the internet for self-proclaimed experts to help her decorate it. "How to make a home" was the Google query she ended up using to start a lively discussion between people who offered their support and willingly provided information. For two months, the notes of the conversations were collected and the creation of the new home was documented in photographs. The result is a kind of long-term study of living and working in someone else's house, which in the end was not designed according to individual needs but corresponded to the wishes of an anonymous mass.
