A Californian Hotel has opened its own supermarket; Sparrow Mart can be found at The Standard in Downtown LA. However, none of the food is edible instead all of the 31,000 products are made entirely of felt. The art installation was created by Lucy Sparrow and features over 31,000 products including liquor, household items, frozen products, confectionary and fresh food, all of which are available for purchase.
This is not the first time British artist Lucy Sparrow has created an inedible supermarket. 2014 saw Sparrow create The Cornershop in London and last year the artist crafted a similar exhibit in New York City called 8 ‘Till Late. Sparrow's latest exhibit is much larger than its predecessors, which only featured 9000 products, making it four times the size.
Sparrow didn’t stop at just grocery items. The artist also created felt ATMs, shopping baskets and trolleys. Prices range from $10 all the way to $65 with unique limited-edition pieces also available for purchase. Popular brands that have been recreated are Ben and Jerrys, Kraft, Brillo, Spam, Sour Patch Kids, Reese’s and Heinz.
To create the installation Sparrow visited grocery stores in both America and the UK taking photographs to recreate the aisles. A team of four sewers were hired to create the 31,000 products that were then hand painted and signed by Sparrow herself. This is the last immersive art installation Sparrow intents to create, with future shows intended to be more of a museum art exhibition.
