Supermarket

The scope of our cultural intervention for Expo02’s project proposal was the creation of a supermarket ambience: furniture, lighting, loudspeaker announcements, cash registers, and employees to take on the familiar patterns of the consumer world. On the shelves are the very special products, which served as the main carrier of our idea, presented and offered.

On the one hand, our actual artwork consisted primarily of the product that we created as an object, giving it a face using designed labels. The containers themselves were empty. On the other hand, visitors could relate to this free and empty space and gauge with their own values what it means to be able to buy ”Power, Envy, Greed, Freedom,” and so on. Our objects thus consisted of themselves, their own reality and history, but they live on the fact that the observer with his ideas, his imagination, and his personality makes the product what it is.

Another important element of our interior design were the CCTVs and screens that were present throughout the room. These were important channels for our suggestions. In them, we mirrored the happenings in the supermarket. We announced or revoked actions, we imposed our slogans on customers, and we presented goods with commercials. The CCTVs and screens were meant to convey the feeling of being watched to the visitor, and the loudspeaker announcements were another instrument with which we compelled the visitor to confront our course of action.

Client Expo02 / Date #2001 / Category #Experimental #Publications / Design Agency #Walhalla / Designers Marco Simonetti, Ibrahim Zbat / Photographer Svetlana Fedoseeva / Publication Expomat (Edition Patrick Frey) / Consultants Marco Simonetti, Ibrahim Zbat

Design Direction Marco Simonetti, Ibrahim Zbat @Walhalla