JOHANNA
What appears at first as a discarded cardboard box is, on closer inspection, a dense cultural artifact. Its printed diagrams and taped seams tell a story not only of a desk lamp but of the global infrastructures that make such an object possible. This box belongs to the lineage of containers—vessels that enable the movement of goods, ideas, and labor across distances. The markings, both intentional and incidental, map the traces of human handling, echoing a shared history of touch, transport, and exchange.
The box embodies the systems of consumption that shape contemporary life. Its functional typography—detailing voltage, wattage, plug type—reflects the rationalized language of standardization, where identity is compressed into specifications. Even the checked box beside “White” signals how choice is framed within narrow consumer categories, reducing complex desires to binary options of color and finish.
The box straddles aspiration and invisibility. It promises adjustability, modern design, and convenience, while the phrase “Made in China” gestures to the unseen global networks of manufacture and labor that sustain everyday domestic comfort. Yet the scrawled, hand-like markings across its surface open another temporal register: they recall the prehistoric hand stencils of Lascaux, those first imprints of presence on stone. In this resonance, the box becomes a contemporary cave wall—layered with signs of labor, desire, and existence. What was once packaging transforms into a palimpsest, bridging Paleolithic imprints and post-industrial commerce. The ordinary becomes archival—an index of economies, aesthetics, and the enduring human impulse to leave a trace.
Box 1, Tracings (after Lascaux), 2025
graphite on cardboard
10.5” x 9.25”x 4.75” in
graphite on cardboard
10.5” x 9.25”x 4.75” in
Box 2 (after Lascaux), 2025
graphite on cardboard
graphite on cardboard