The Plastic Supermarket

Little do we Europeans know of Xu Zhen, the Chinese equivalent of Banksy. In 2007 this individual opened a store in Shanghai that only contains empty plastic packages. Coke cans without coke, bags of crisps without potatoes, bottles without lemonade, orphans without organs – you get the idea. The fun thing is the store sustains itself, people actually buy that trash. Even more remarkably, one customer remarks she is buying these packages as a reminder. And I feel her. We all need to remind ourselves how much we waste on waste!

This supermarket is so ironic – people take photos how other people take photos.

On the first glance it even looks like a normal supermarket. Hell, it is a normal supermarket, since half of the crap we buy is devoid of any content anyway. What you buy today is the trash of tomorrow. Supermarkets just pile and arrange trash neatly next to price tags. Indeed, it’s the price tags that differentiates them from piles of rubbish.

What you make of this art exhibition is up to you. But kudos for running for roughly 10 years. This success speaks for itself and hits the nerve of an alienating consumer’s culture. Nothing too subversive, but still very sublime in its simplicity. Just watch this video here. 

Bags

China is apparently producing “about a third of plastic waste and polluting the world’s oceans“ says „a report“, says a headline. 

But look: the Chinese actually try to make a difference! They produce a thirds of the world’s plastic waste, but now they cut down two thirds on their plastic bags production. The Triads also loving thirds, am I right?

Dark humour aside, I genuinely dig this art exhibition and would love if people would think more consciously what supermarkets have become. It’s these kind of supermarkets as “Unverpackt” from Kiel whose founder we have interviewed recently that give me some rest for my eyes and hope for the coming years.

Temur