Goofi (2022)
Shown at the West Bund Art and Design Fair in Shanghai
Artist
Wet markets around South East Asia are being closed up and replaced by large gray shelters that are pushing out mum and pop stores for the sake of escaping the term “dirty,” a term that is used to exert colonial power over the local culture and manufacturing. This artwork is about preserving the vibrancy and resilience of these markets. Besides the obvious humorous qualities of a misspelled “Adidos” or a uncanny valley mashup of Garfield and Jimmy Neutron, counterfeits made them more economically accessible to an Asian audience. These products were manufactured by Asian hands and in a lot of cases had their labor exploited and yet, they were priced out by the very products they were forced to craft. Counterfeits undercut these international Intellectual Properties and rebelled against the colonial influence that controlled the market.