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Laura Kazaroff (b.1993) is a London based artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2023 she graduated from the MFA Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London, previously having completed a BA Fashion Design at the School of Architecture, Design and Urbanism (FADU) at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is part of New contemporaries 2024, showing at the Levinsky Gallery in Plymouth and at the ICA in London.

Her practice is concerned with the ways in which happiness, especially in relation to mental health, becomes inevitably commodified. Through sculpture and installation, she explore the various ways in which this commodification permeates contemporary culture and makes its way into daily social interactions. Often, this is manifested in the overusing of certain terms and phrases until they completely lose their meaning. Her latest series explored the ‘invention’ of ‘devicesʼ that serve a satirical therapeutic purpose: a ‘vibeʼ check machine, a helmet to unleash your ‘true selfʼ, a magic wand that fixes problems with the ubiquitous refrain 'It is what it is'.

Sometimes these phrases take the form of manifestations or affirmations. ‘I accept myself, I love myself and I keep moving forward’, ‘I live my highest potential and truth 24/7’, ‘I follow my dreams’, ‘I choose to be happy’. We often hear these ‘motivational’ phrases in the context of ‘Pop therapy’ through certain reality TV shows like Queer eye or Married at first sight, or in disciplines like Positive Psychology. These repeated terms or phrases are often directly borrowed from psychological terms -such as gaslight, narcissist, toxic, self-sabotage, etc- but through repetition, they end up being emptied of true meaning and intention. This is directly related to the commodification of mental health and its main by-product:  the wellness industry.

In this context, repurposing found objects serves as a dual metaphor. These once- functional items have now been transformed into gimmicky, non-functional devices that playfully deceive and ultimately 'disappoint’ in their lack of function. Their sleek metallic surfaces, smooth curves, and vibrant screens invite closer interaction, only to reveal that the buttons don't work, and the handles are merely plungers.