Less Than A Thousand
Chest of drawers, teacups, saffron bulbs, jarred products of the farm, brooches
2018
In collaboration with the social farm La Mattonaia , I designed workshops allowing participants with various mental pathologies to create “works” that played upon the commercialization of multiples from the multinational corporation Ikea. The goal was to deal with the marginalization of stigma showing the faces of the farm as a brand to be used on products made over the course of the year by users, putting them on the market then as works of art in a gallery. Ikea furniture represented the agricultural world of farming thrown into crisis by the market and in danger of shutting down. For this reason, each piece is put on sale at current market values for the art world and thus returns to the possession of the social organization. Works were created by the cooperative’s participants and me on wooden and ceramic objects with markers and crayons—techniques unsuited by nature to permanence, intended instead to prompt reflection on the care required by fragile elements if they are to remain intact. The title refers to the one rule for purchasing: every offer is accepted as long as it is less than one- thousand euros.
