This second issue is about consumerism. The stories range from the observation of consumerism, as in the handsome series by Brian Ulrich on American malls, the work by Jan Sochor on life on the trash dumps in Nicaragua, to the solutions, realistic or otherwise, and theories presented by Atelier van Lieshout’s SlaveCity Project and the article on Cradle to Cradle. Related to this last topic, Fenne Roefs gives us a graphic and analytical demonstration of how much refuse the average Rotterdammer actually produces.
In her series, What’s the big deal anyway?, Danielle van Ark examines the international art trade with photographs of art fairs in London, New York, Rotterdam and Dubai, and Guikje Roethof interviews various players in the trade. Chris Jordan transforms the leftovers of our consumer society into abstract and disconcerting artworks, and from hundreds of mementos of mass tourism, Corinne Vionnett creates new, painterly images.
Daniel Pflumm’s bombardment of advertising and television images is an important contribution, while our stories from Asia are from the hand of Sophie Gerrard, who reports on the dumping of computer waste in India, and from Anjes Gesink, on overweight children in Indonesia literally being sweetened by young, inexperienced nannies. Finally, we have Bos¡tjan Pucelj’s series on the frequently sad fates of the burden-bearers of our everyday consumerism.