How a fake Walmart stoked dissent in Toronto's Kensington Market
Source: Toronto Star
A few weeks ago, Toronto city council passed a bylaw freezing retail development on nearby Bathurst St. for a minimum of one year. ... General though it may be, the freeze appears targeted at Walmart Canada, which still plans to install one of its omnibus retail outlets on the market’s doorstep, on Bathurst between Dundas and College Sts.
So when the familiar sign — blue background, white letters, a cartoony twinkle of yellow — appeared on a storefront on Augusta Ave. last Saturday, the shocked disdain that greeted it maybe shouldn’t have been a surprise.
“People were threatening to tear it down,” says Jordan Tannahill, co-director of the gallery-cum-performance space Videofag. “We had to politely explain to them: ‘We’re on your side. It’s a satire. You can step inside and see for yourself.’”
... Inside, they mounted a cheekily precious display of Walmart’s wilfully generic product line: $10 sneakers, displayed on a plinth; a column of toilet paper packages; a bag of cotton balls hanging on the wall, like a Minimalist sculpture. In the middle of the space, they put three bags of chips, varying flavours, with the same logo — “Great Value” — festooned across the top in blue and white. “We called it our chip triptych,” Tannahill laughed.
Read more: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/visualarts/2013/08/09/how_a_fake_walmart_stoked_dissent_in_torontos_kensington_market.html