Brands wield the power to mold and shape culture, behaviors, and the environment. Examples can be seen in everyday life, such as with Uber, where a tap on a screen brings food to one’s doorstep, with dating apps, where swiping can lead to finding a lifelong partner, and with brewing companies, where a single influencer can spark civil rights movements.
Strategists possess the power to shape cultural discourse through brands. They can foster meaningful dialogues and drive positive change within society. Astha Avinash, a New York-based Strategist, Textile Artist, and Creative, is determined to stir dialogue by using art as an expression to re-contextualize brands and challenge their positioning.
When Astha moved to the United States from India, she realized that living in New York City meant immersing herself in one of the richest cultural juggernauts. This city, home to some of the famous art masterpieces, provided the perfect backdrop for her work. With a background in Indian textiles and a Master’s degree from the School of Visual Arts, Astha has been surrounded and exposed to art and design from the very beginning of her life. One of her earliest memories of creativity dates back to when she was just six years old, drawing on every available white space on the walls of her house in India.
Living in New York inspired Astha to embark on a project that could challenge her resilience in her profession for 100 consecutive days. She sought to combine her rich background in art with her newfound passion for brands. This vision led to the inception of the Museum of Modern Brands (MoMB), a playful take on MoMA.
In her 100-day project, Astha transformed historically and culturally rooted artworks by incorporating branded objects, reshaping their narratives, and offering fresh perspectives in contemporary society.
Astha specifically talks about a piece by Edward Hopper, who captured an urban city’s eerie, deserted landscape in his painting “The Nighthawks.” She sees a parallel between this painting and today’s society, where food delivery systems have made us more isolated than ever. She explains that the idea behind MoMB is quite simple: to question the given. She finds that unrelated, open-ended art pieces often remind her of today’s brands and strike an interesting parallel. By the end of the project, Astha successfully completed 100 narratives displaying a great volume of work.
Astha employs a distinctive blend of comic elements, satire, and intrigue in her artistic expressions, effectively conveying her unique perspective on contemporary issues. Driven by the aspiration to see global brands penetrate and positively impact grassroots communities, she advocates for a deep sense of responsibility among these corporations. Astha contends that for global brands to truly resonate with and benefit the base-level consumers, they must act conscientiously, considering the socio-economic and environmental implications of their decisions. Her work often challenges these corporations to rethink their strategies and align their business practices with ethical standards that support sustainable development and equitable growth. Through her art, Astha not only highlights the potential of global brands to initiate change but also holds them accountable, insisting that their influence should be wielded to foster genuine progress at the community level.
The entire project is available to view on Instagram @museumofmodernbrands.
Published By: Aize Perez
