Daniela Bobadilla Rojas
SVA Design Research

(Objects as auto-psychoanalyst)
3M Command™ Hooks "A damage-free hanging solution"
Personal journey of belonging


I arrived in New York in fall of 2012 to continued my studies in Industrial Design at Pratt Institute. My English sucked, I didn't have someone to guide me through the college system and most things didn't make sense. I left my mom at the airport before classes started, she cried and I waited for her to embark her flight before dedicating myself into a serious heartfelt crying. 
Things got better after a few months, I got the grip at school and I was able to rent an apartment with my partner in Clinton Hill. Finding an apartment with no credit and Social Security could get difficult but we manage to rent one by paying some rent in advance. It was our first experience at renting a place and because we wanted our security deposit back I was really strict on the no breaking shit and making holes on the wall thing. Also as an international student, you have an expiration date, you know that you don't belong to this country and that you are just passing by, so you don't get expensive furniture or tons of things because at the end it will be just a waste of money.
By this time I discovered the 3M Command™ hooks "A damage-free hanging solution". The magic behind 3M Command™ hooks it's their strong reliable tape that let you stick them to almost any surface and then the awesome part is you can take the hook out and pull the strip leaving no mark on the wall. I suppose most people buy them because they don't necessarily own a drill or know how to put a screw on the wall without the thing falling or making a huge hole. This wasn't my case though I'm and industrial designer and power tools are like my jam. I used them primarily because of the impermanent situation I was as an immigrant.
At first, I didn't mind having to erase my existence by using not damaging hooks and not buying real nice furniture, but the years went by, I wasn't homesick anymore and then New York just became my new home. I wonder if at any point in their life the Command™ hooks would have that same feeling of wanting to belong. What advice could they give young immigrants around the world?

After a few years of eating at my work desk, on the floor, on my bed I took the decision that I somehow had become a New Yorker, that I deserved to be here, so I went and bought an Ikea dining table (copy of Eero Saarinen tulip table) with a heavy metal bottom, it gave me this feeling of belonging and it grounded me in NYC. 

Objects can help us navigate and make sense of our place and space in the world. At the end, they acted as a deeply personal psychoanalysis about belonging to a place.