17 Days of Shopping - Mary Macpherson

6 October - 5 November 2000 in the Hirschfeld Gallery

‘The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star. Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.’

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, French author and chef

Physiology of Taste

Over 17 days—or the time it took to use up ten rolls of film—Mary Macpherson photographed the food and groceries she brought home in shopping and take-away bags, and purchased en-route to Taupo. The resulting 95 images unfold like a series of visual shopping lists around the gallery wall, playing out the photographer’s personal narrative of consumption, and, as the familiar adage ‘you are what you eat’ suggests, something of her lifestyle and tastes.

Macpherson’s photographic installation evokes the lurid ambience of the supermarket, in which an abundance of packaged and branded goods parade before the shopper’s eye. Like goods on the supermarket shelf, each image is both a discrete entity, compartmentalised by its white border and arrangement on the gallery wall, and part of a continuous sequence of images.

Emphasising the labelling and packaging of the food we eat, 17 Days of Shopping is a visual investigation into the complex chain of producing and marketing food—and the crucial role which image-making plays in this process. Photographed against a blue sky like an image from an advertisement, bottled water, for instance, is not just a natural and basic necessity but a branded, marketed commodity. Even the fresh and aesthetically perfect produce is clearly part of an elaborate infrastructure of biotechnology, harvesting and distribution, photographed in its plastic bags and surrounded by goods that wear their branding like a second skin. Straight from the supermarket shelf and onto the chopping board, kitchen bench, or dinner plate, the food in 17 Days of Shopping promises to be as good as it looks.

Rebecca Wilson

Artist’s Biography

Mary Macpherson was born in Dunedin and currently lives in Wellington. Her photographs have been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout New Zealand, and are part of private and public collections. Her book of poems The Inland Eye was published by Pemmican Press in 1998. 17 Days of Shopping was also exhibited at Waikato Museum of Art and History earlier this year. A portfolio of images from the exhibition will be featured in the forthcoming issue of the literary magazine Sport.