What Happened to Pears Soap

2022-2024. Installation comprised of ten prints and two sculptures

What Happened to Pears Soap is a series collapsing the 200+ year history of the iconic Pears Soap brand. Originally produced in the UK, the brand was once marketed through imperialist ideology, promoting colonization and the “virtues of cleanliness,” even including Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “The White Man’s Burden” in its ads. Endorsed by Queen Victoria, the soap was a symbol of national pride. In 2009, the brand was bought by Hindustan Unilever and has been produced in India ever since. Upon rumor of the soap’s formula change, the company was the target of vitriol from the British press and fans of the original soap who lamented the brand’s fall through incendiary online commentary, reviews, and campaigns advocating for the original formula’s return. This project examines the residual imperialistic and racist mentalities around notions of hygiene, outsourcing, the relationship between nationalism and production (or product), and whiteness as a prevailing symbol of beauty and power.

  • Farewell Forever, Pears, 2022. Inkjet print on Rives BFK, 18x12in.

  • Happened to Pears?, 2022. Inkjet print on Rives BFK, 18x12 in.

  • A Victim of the Modern Age, 2022. Inkjet print on Rives BFK, 18 in.x12 in.

  • Is There Nothing That Hasn't Been Outsourced, 2022. Inkjet print on Rives BFK 18 in.x12 in.

  • Another British Classic, 2022. Inkjet print on Rives BFK, 18 in.x12 in.

  • Yet Another Benefit of "Globalisation", 2022. Inkjet print on Rives BFK, 18 in.x12 in.

  • Power to the People, 2022. Inkjet print on Rives BFK, 18 in.x 2 in.

  • Residue, 2024. Milk glass Queen Victoria’s hands soap dish, Pears Soap, and pigment, 7.5 x 6 x 1.5 in.

  • A Dangerous Word, 2024. Digital print on silk georgette; entry for “Imperialism” from the 78th Edition of the Pears Cyclopaedia (1960-70), 80 x 48 in.

  • Comfortable Products, 2023. Inkjet print on cotton rag paper; text from Vladimir Nabokov’s “Speak Memory,” 24x18 in.

  • When Held to the Light, 2023. Inkjet print on cotton rag paper; text from Vladimir Nabokov’s “Speak Memory,” 24 in.x18 in.

  • Repetitive Pictures, 2023. Inkjet print on cotton rag paper; text from Vladimir Nabokov’s “Speak Memory,” 24 x18 in.