A duality-driven research-creation project, Elysium reinterprets Toronto’s rental housing crisis through the parodical-critical framework of Linda Hutcheon’s recontextualization of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of Double-Voiced Discourse. Drawing from James C. Scott’s theory of Everyday Resistance, I argue parody is an effective tactic of everyday resistance, challenging the systemic erasure of tenant experiences in the rental housing search.

In twofold forms of cute-countercultural design and autoethnographic-satire, Elysium operates within dissonance, absurdity, and the prevalent Gen Z phenomenon of “trinket culture,” an aesthetic of affective nostalgia, as a visual strategy for social engagement.

Elysian Friends, a series of fictitious mascots, function as representational communicative agents, utilized across lowbrow mediums as an entry-point to encourage solidarity among women aged 18-28. Elysium proposes an alternative method to how tenants engage with housing culture, whilst establishing a critical commentary on the exclusion of women-identified media in housing and design research.

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