CHOICE Tomatoes

Info
  • installation view, Optica Gallery
    oil on fiberboard, dimensions of installation 2 x 6.5 m

  • installation view, Optica Gallery
    oil on fiberboard, dimensions of installation 2 x 6.5 m

  • detail
    Optica Gallery, installation view

  • detail
    oil paint on fiberboard, dimensions: 27.5 x 24 x 7.5 cm

  • detail
    oil paint on fiberboard, dimensions: 27.5 x 24 x 7.5 cm

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This project began while shopping in my local grocery store. While facing the shelves of canned tomatoes I automatically picked up the one my mom always purchases.

When is the freedom to choose exercised? How is choice determined? When there is so much apparent choice how often is it determined by learned patterns that go unquestioned? And is there really a choice? I considered these questions through depictions of an ever-growing collection of different labels of a single consumer product available to the Canadian consumer. (Having consumed all the different types I became aware that the only real difference was that some were “Italian” tomatoes.)

 

This project began while shopping in my local grocery store. While facing the shelves of canned tomatoes I automatically picked up the one my mom always purchases.

When is the freedom to choose exercised? How is choice determined? When there is so much apparent choice how often is it determined by learned patterns that go unquestioned? And is there really a choice? I considered these questions through depictions of an ever-growing collection of different labels of a single consumer product available to the Canadian consumer. (Having consumed all the different types I became aware that the only real difference was that some were “Italian” tomatoes.)