A chance encounter with art in a supermarket…

Associated media

Hidden amongst the frozen peas, tins of baked beans, fruit and veg, and deli counter of Morrisons Supermarket in Tunbridge Wells are 500 small books containing drawings of the transient, treasured, new and broken things in an artist’s life.  Each book awaits chance discovery by a shopper, an invitation to browse or buy for just a penny. 
 
Things is a selection of new and archive drawings of the everyday items that Simon Faithfull encounters in his life, created digitally using Palm Pilots or iPhones. 

With drawings chosen from the past 13 years, the book also presents new work made from Faithfull’s observations in Morrisons Supermarket.  He perceives the supermarket as a conduit through which things enter our lives, and Things explores how objects are seen, interacted with and valued, and the effect when the natural order of things is disrupted.
 
In tandem with his supermarket intervention, Faithfull is also launching a £10.00 deluxe edition of Things in London this Autumn, with an essay by curator and critic Lorena Muñoz-Alonso.



Simon Faithfull’s practice has been described as an attempt to understand and explore the planet as a sculptural object, testing its limits and reporting back from its extremities.   His work has seen him walking through a burning plane for ZY1899: Reenactment for a Future Scenario (Tatton Park Biennial 2012) walking through the landscape at the bottom of the sea in Going Nowhere 2, transporting a chair attached to a weather balloon to the edge of space in Escape vehicle no.6, and sending out live digital drawings daily during a two-month journey to Antarctica (Antarctica Dispatches).



Things is the fifth project realized by Hoodwink as part of its three-year site-specific commissioning programme in the everyday places of Kent.  Their first commission, Profound Riches by Jonathan Wright opened in Tunbridge Wells in April 2013 – turning the town’s independent music venue, The Forum, into both transmitter and receiver via a sound sculpture on the roof.   In September last year Terry Perk and Julian Rowe’s Catoptromancy, opened; a large-scale kaleidoscopic sculpture in Ashford’s County Square Shopping Centre, that uses live CCTV feeds to collapse and reconfigure the reality of the busy mall.  Later in 2014 Hollington & Kyprianou are creating a commission for Wilko as part of Folkestone Fringe, and Adam Chodzko is producing a new work in the Medway region.
 


Challenging formal presentations of contemporary art in museums and galleries, Hoodwink disrupts the fabric of everyday life with site-specific commissions in diverse ‘live’ environments.  Hoodwink collaborates with emerging and established artists on works of chance encounter and intervention that respond to an immediate locale whether a music venue, pub, supermarket, leisure centre or shopping mall.
 
Things is designed by Mark Diaper and published by Laconic Books.

Simon Faithfull
 Things 

Morrisons Supermarket
Tunbridge Wells

12 June – November 2014