Drew Waters: Shelf Life

AWARDED SVENSK BOKKONST 2021 Great photo-zine printed on untrimmed newspaper stock exploring the rather crazy American supermarket culture From the publisher: Shelf Life explores the spatial and social landscape in and around the hallowed ground of American consumption, the Supermarket. The average North American supermarket is 40,000 square feet (12,100 m²), roughly the size of a football field or an acre of land. The commodified space we enter to partake, in this final destination of industrial food production, is designed to generate maximum ‘cart value’ or expenditure. The over-produced food products bear little resemblance to the land, labor, plant forms or animals from which they were extracted. In addition to the photographic sequence, a poem by Drew Waters unfolds a personal narrative of resistance navigating a Mega Mart, lit up like a stadium, to purchase just a couple of items. A mock Industry Marketing Report reveals proven strategies to make us always buy more.