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Maryam Jafri

Economy Corner

Maryam Jafri . Economy Corner  (1)

Photos: © Sebastian Bach . + P!

Generic Corner consists of packaging plucked from the history of consumer products alongside still-life photographs. During the 1970s and 1980s, generic food products featuring stark, black and white graphics were directed towards low-income and costconscious shoppers. These “unbranded” surfaces connoted cheapness and economy, reflected in their lower price points. Yet such generic goods, recovered and presented by Jafri decades later, become fresh projection screens for individual desires. Resembling conceptual art, monochromatic pop, and typographic samples alike, Jafri’s appropriation and recontextualization of these anachronistic consumer objects suggest alternative histories and futures of very different kinds of products.
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