ABSTRACT
The global pandemic has altered daily life and perspectives on it to a degree unparalleled in recent memory. Aesthetics, delineated here as sensory experience of artistic content, including the home and everyday objects, has taken on different meanings at a time when people have adapted to alternative ways of interacting with the world. In particular, as individuals and families have adjusted to living under self-quarantine conditions in order to protect themselves from getting ill, and to slow the spread of virus transmission, the aesthetics of everyday life is unlike what was experienced before. For some consumers, being at home for months has come with a renewed awareness of the importance of an aesthetically pleasing living environment, replete with technology to allow for continued interaction with others and with aesthetic experiences. This renewed awareness has propelled, for example, additional do-it-yourself artistic interior design projects, and increased use of digital media to bring arts-based sensory experiences into the home. In the post-pandemic world, the shifts observed in terms of differential experiences of aesthetics in daily life and the greater use of technology to bring about aesthetic experiences may remain.
Likewise, researchers studying aesthetics in everyday life have become more creative, open, and adaptable to the pandemic conditions – including engaging in greater art-making, and introspection as research methods. This chapter focuses on living aesthetics – how I, as researcher experienced aesthetics of Whistler's Peacock Room. Translocated to the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., Whistler's Peacock Room is a space that can be defined as an actual room in a home, and as a piece of interior decorative art, serving as a liminal space/place for my aesthetic experiences before and during the pandemic, and as an inspiration for my own peacock-themed dining room. The chapter contributes to the discussion of everyday aesthetic experiences in lived environments during and (post) pandemic.
