Untitled Document

Every day as I passed through the underpass under Thokoly Ut at Keleti metro station, I walked between two long lines of vendors, standing with their backs to the wall, selling a diverse range of items: tomatoes, skirts, socks, superglue, flowers, bras, trousers, shoes, paprika, T-shirts, Jewellery, oranges and carrier bags. As this was an officially illegal market, when the police occasionally passed by, everyone had to pack up their wares and leave, but they would set up their positions again once the police had left. The items people sold were usually new and the vendor would stand holding one example aloft whilst keeping more copies in a box at their feet.

Interested in this economy on the fringes of legality, and in the evolution and establishment of an everyday use of public space that wasn't officially endorsed, I wanted to make some kind of visual acknowlegement of its presence. Borrowing from the style of cheap window display advertising pictograms that were commonly seen in Budapest (see picture of flower stall), I made similar, simple coloured plastic vinyl representations of each item. One night I placed them over the light boxes which line the corridor above where the vendors stand. It was difficult to get any document photographs of the sellers as they were, understandably, reluctant to have their photographs taken, but the stickers remained in place for some years after.



Every day as I passed through the underpass under Thokoly Ut at Keleti metro station, I walked between two long lines of vendors, standing with their backs to the wall, selling a diverse range of items: tomatoes, skirts, socks, superglue, flowers, bras, trousers, shoes, paprika, T-shirts, Jewellery, oranges and carrier bags. As this was an officially illegal market, when the police occasionally passed by, everyone had to pack up their wares and leave, but they would set up their positions again once the police had left. The items people sold were usually new and the vendor would stand holding one example aloft whilst keeping more copies in a box at their feet. Interested in this economy on the fringes of legality, and in the evolution and establishment of an everyday use of public space that wasn't officially endorsed, I wanted to make some kind of visual acknowlegement of its presence. Borrowing from the style of cheap window display advertising pictograms that were commonly seen in Budapest (see picture of flower stall), I made similar, simple coloured plastic vinyl representations of each item. One night I placed them over the light boxes which line the corridor above where the vendors stand. It was difficult to get any document photographs of the sellers as they were, understandably, reluctant to have their photographs taken, but the stickers remained in place for some years after.
Exhibitions: Intermedia, Academy of Art, Budapest, May, 1996.