Package Tours

It all started when I noticed the plastic netting on lemons…

CONNECT

I investigate what we loose when distracted by viewing the world through technological lenses. How our focus shifts in constructed spaces, where text and imagery direct and distance us. How we become increasingly immersed in our own busy worlds, where what we once noticed and excited us as children gets lost and we feel disconnected.

I use Package Tours to ignite interest and explore how our senses, gaze and focus are curated in the space of a supermarket. How we frame our shopping within the confines of a list and without that list our encounter and interaction is changed. How we react when we see with new eyes what we normally skim. How when we notice we are curated within the space our senses are awakened, leading to dialogue, agency, a collective voice and new possibilities for a more sustainable future.

 We live, work, shop and think in curated spaces, where our choices and decisions are nudged and manipulated; the desirable object appealing to our senses and emotions. We are familiar with the order, the montaged image, we understand the context and can reconstruct meaning, we glean subconsciously and consciously the messages within the space. How aware are we though of being curated? 

I returned to the supermarket, I noticed how others move around the space, how they make decisions, back track, pick things up and place them back. I track a person shopping, drawing their journey as a map. I observe the restricted head movements, the narrow gaze, inner brain working to make unnoticed decisions and sub conscious movements. The shopper immersed in the process of shopping, following a route, the possibility of free movement constricted by the curated space, boxed in by the aisles; obsessiveness in looking for best deals, re thinking recipes, returning to items, multiple decisions in a place of overwhelming choices. I make more maps, with a key of symbols representing movements.

I have found that the package tour acts as a key to open space for dialogue for people. We start to notice what was hidden to us before and they need for a space for our voices to emerge is paramount. Working within the safe and familiar environment of the cafe people are keen to interact and communicate what the found. This space has become most important as a place for a sense of common fears, concerns to be expressed and activates people.

Can we learn to shop for what we need and not what we want? Can we select that which harms the environment and us the least?