What is missing?
6 – 28 May 2016
CACCA
via Solferino 33a, Bologna
www.ilcacca.org
A shopping list is a very personal text, written for a single use and afterwards disposed. People use shopping lists for not forgetting anything to purchase or to tell someone else what needs to be bought. They might be as well a protective shield, to disregard the omnipresent product advertising in every supermarket. Nevertheless, some people leave this personal object thoughtless in the trolley.
This is the moment when the artist duo PetriPaselli intervenes. Since three years Matteo Petri and Luciano Paselli have collected abandoned shopping lists. Now they can be seen by the visitors of their installation at the CACCA (Centro di Arte Contemporanea sulla Cultura Alimentare – Centre of contemporary art and food culture). With that, the original privat texts are getting public. The exhibition of intimate information might remind the baring of soul which is often offered in talk shows and on social media, but here the privacy is not at risk, due to the anonymity of the author.
At the same time this artwork awakes curiosity and the observer starts quasi automatically to read the shopping lists. So PetriPaselli creates interaction between the installation and the visitor. The content begins to work in each individual’s consciousness. So there are many different possibilities of reflection that might occur to the reader.
One can perhaps distinguish a weekly shopping list from one which is only for some forgotten or supplementary products. Especially the short lists let think about what people could do with the provisions: to buy lemons and fish seems to be obvious, but how fits the Gorgonzola in?
Who might be the writer? On base of the handwriting we might make out if the author is younger or older. The kind of products could give hints to a single household or a huge family or to masculine or feminine buyers. Since the shopping lists are collected in Bologna, Italy, most of them are written in Italian. Nevertheless, there are some in foreign languages like English and Dutch. Were these tourists, exchange students or permanent migrants?
The style of the shopping list could reveal something about the character of the writer: some are accurately written, even with ornaments; others have one product under the other or all in one line; some seem to be in disorder. Moreover, certain people strikethrough, what they just put into the trolley. An attentive observer might even find out if the author is brand addicted, if the products are clearly to identify.
It is even possible to assume, that the purchaser takes care of his/her health. Is someone buying mostly ready-to-eat meals or only fresh fruits and vegetables? How is our nutrition and the culture around our “daily bread”? With these questions we are in the centre of interest of the project EUTOPIA, for which the artist collective Panem Et Circenses invited several artists to reflect about the future and culture of our nourishment. The series was initiated on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the publication of “Utopia” by Thomas More. Until December 2016 there will be continuously artistic events around the subject at the show room of Panem Et Circenses, CACCA.
For an appointment to visit the current installation or to stay informed about the following events, please contact: ilcacca@panemetcircens.es