Welcome to Minimart

This is a continuation project that became heavily researched based. I wanted to look at how we currently viewed food to change our unhealthy habits and become more sustainable as a race. My research accumulated into one final piece - 'Minimart.'

'Minimart' is made up of our daily essentials. What we would typically go to the supermarket for. The five main groups that the average person goes in to pick up every day are Bread, Meat, Fruit, and Cereal. This final installation piece was exhibited in the 'In Cahoots' 2018 Brighton and London show. Here viewers could smell, see, touch the different products on the shelves - and could begin to understand how we have been tempted into the routine by supermarket psychology.

I realised through my research that a lot of fruit comes around a particular farm or area - sometimes a fabricated place (as proved in the media). I chose a generic-looking farm found on google and used that image as a base for my products. This would lead the viewer to think that the products had come from a romantic place - encouraging them to buy.

I recorded a trip to a busy supermarket and replayed it over the top of my installation mixed with nature sounds (for an 'organic' feeling). So people could feel like they were in a supermarket when they were near the structure. I made a quick animation for visuals to go with the sounds.

I laser cut a sign to hang over the top of the installation to match big supermarket brands. I used fluorescent colours so the sign would have a glowing feeling and added my own adjusted typeface. I considered using a light-up sign but decided the wires would be too messy. I also individually screen printed fruit bags in three different sizes and colours to accompany the other foods (matching the same logo). Again for fluorescent orange bags - with the message 'you'll be back' on the back of the bags.

I decided that for the fruit part of my installation, I would make some square apples out of wax. To represent the outrageous standards that fruit has to meet to make it into the supermarket and the shocking amount of wax covering the fruit to preserve it. I then got in touch with a prop-making company called 'Model Produce,' and they taught me how to do it myself, at home with an individual mold. The final result was 20 rounded-edged square apples - perfect for stacking and presenting in a store. The apples also had flawless skin to show how ideal fruit has to be to make it through inspection. Most fruit also has to pass a stencil test which these apples now would. The apples were finished with fake stalks and leaves, branded stickers, and polished to shine.