56 Regina St N Waterloo ON
Melika Hashemi and Ioana Dragomir
Look around: What's something you love and hate at the same time? Something that’s in your hands but you can’t call yours? Something you need but don’t want (vice versa)? POP-UP SHOP is a two-person exhibition which references the window gallery’s history as a commercial vitrine. Both artists have created work that gesture to commercial items while simultaneously testing the boundaries of art and consumerism.
Melika Hashemi's large velvet prints are closeup images inviting the viewer to see the mundane anew, and her boxed ceramic sweets point to overabundance. Ioana Dragomir's ceramic egg cartons and altered toy horses point to labour, and her hollow books are a comparison of information and objecthood.
On closing day, only postcards with images of select items are sold. The artists play with the capitalist language of stores, creating a store where the only real things are display copies and the only sellable things are useless.
