Whilst studying fine art, E Smith formed a collective with 5 other artists. United by their interest in relational aesthetics, they embarked on Project ‘Shop’ [2010] which culminated in a 4 day long public art event, that spanned their multiple disciplines as artists, from the conceptual to the comedic, and from design to performance. The year long project evolved into an exploration of the consumerist zeitgeist via imitation, play, and satire; in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The collective created and responded to these events that saw the British shopping high street dive into ghostly recession, a moment that marked the passing of peak abundance and credit in the retail sector. Megalith chain stores lost their town centre monopoly on visual space, along with their territory, and as Rome burned, the creatives began to occupy the vacant spaces. Galleries had popped up in the disused units, but this art collective wanted to explore the layers of commerce and how it exists in our geography and psyche, through discussing the implications of person and planet when involved intrinsically in the era of unbridled consumerism. 

They imitated mass-production from initial conceptual design meetings, to graphic design and product development, to screen printing directly onto post-high street cardboard boxes, gathered from the local retail stores. They became connoisseurs of cardboard, printing, scoring and gluing the net forms of their designs into packages. All up there were approximately 25 different products, and culminatively around 1500 items, made by hand in a factory line type operation. 

For four days, beginning with the commencement of a STOCK SALE 10 minutes after openings, members of the public were greeted at the door by the artists, handed imitation £10 note, 'reading exact change'. Printed on convincingly legit paper and in the familiar format, it was an enticing draw to the event. On closer inspection, the queen was Martin Billingham, cross eyed, bearded and spewing bank notes, the other side, E Smith in the place of Darwin. Intricate details of a bank heist are in the background, as well as other musings on finite currency and the passing of time.

The participants were given the option to walk away with the money, or head inside the shop, to peruse it's cardboard brown items, on cardboard shelves, and to encounter the characters that worked there.

On the walls, an infomercial screens chattered relentlessly, switching between adverts. One being for Diet Fat, a parody of the Marks and Spencers advertisements, which at the time were sultry and sensual, often featuring slow motion shots with suggestive and smooth voice overs. The Diet Fat advert was quite a revolting spectacle - video footage of creamy liquid running down a bearded chin in close up, with soaring music and a smarmy voice telling you to try the Heart Stop Challenge.

There was a live video feed of the performance as CCTV footage, a broadcast of the event which looked at the idea of identity and consumerism.

Behind the cardboard front counter on which the cardboard till and scanner were positioned, there was a shelf made specially for the restricted items, Quantitative Easers - a brand of cigarettes created by Patrick Collier, designer of the bank notes.

Among the Shop products there was a spectrum from the light hearted to the existential. Neatly arranged rows of products stood proudly awaiting their interaction, either in the charade of playing in a cardboard shop, or evoking a deep belly laugh, or snort at the packaging copy.

Each item entertained some a discussion on a variety of angles from climate change, obsolescence, diet culture, fear culture, what makes us buy, and the power that brands and convenience appear to have over us, how nice it is to have choice, and always with in the format of advertising, a common vernacular in which to communicate with the participant.

Relational Aesthetics was a movement the collective got excited about, which informed the container that was Project Shop. It was not enough to create products that talked about these things, it was to have the people of the town come into the space and interact.

The conversations and participation in the shop were a landscape to navigate, the artists themselves in various characters, stacking shelves, on the checkout, or hard selling to customers in comedic and confronting ways.