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Red Sourcebook

Combining language from Restoration Hardware’s seasonal furniture catalogues with 20th century Federal Housing Authority lending guidelines, Red Sourcebook examines the parallels between the contemporary language of design aesthetics and longstanding justifications for segregation. The Federal Housing Authority guidelines advised banks to adopt exclusionary home loan tactics in a practice known as “redlining,” ultimately driving segregation and houselessness while allowing white homeowners to disproportionately accrue property to pass down between generations. By addressing these sites in tandem, Harris-Babou highlights the reciprocal relationship between the development of home improvement trends and the conflation of private property with white wealth.