Student loan debt makes up 6% of the national debt in the U.S., or $2.2 trillion dollars. On average, two-thirds of students graduating from American universities leave with some form of debt, and 1 in 10 students incur over $40,000 of student loan debt, according to The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS).

For my final Master of Design project, I constructed a happening that offered a commentary on this subject that was not only dependent on data and statistics, but on the collaborative effort of a group of connected individuals.

CLA$$IFIED is a two-part performance design piece. The first part exposes an aspect of each contributor’s personal financial history by displaying their student loan debt, bank balance, social class, or other (normally private) financial information on a t-shirt worn by the contributor. The second is a pop-up shop that seeks to outfit the individual performer by selling merchandise displaying more general and satirical content about personal finance. During the exhibition, I played the role of cashier and attempted to sell to show attendees.

This event sought to highlight the financial inaccessibility of some American institutions — such as higher education or the upper middle class. By constructing a narrative that reveals the honest, ironic, or relatively humorous reality of our shared experiences, it makes the topic of student finance and the student loan epidemic both visible and accessible. By exposing information that is usually hidden, the performance provides a platform for people to speak their truth, challenge the stigmas surrounding personal finance, and make this politically volatile subject open for discussion.

2018