FLY-IN-FLY-OUT

What is the visual impact of e-commerce on the local community surrounding Liège’s airport ?

Eva Pel looks into the relation between e-commerce and the rapid disappearance of small shops in city centers. The combination of large-scale shopping malls and online shopping is greatly affecting local shop owners. In Liège, the expanding airport transforms local areas into direct neighbours of industrial landscapes, warehouses and distribution centres. Houses are being demolished and inhabitants expropriated. Communal structures fall apart.

Through these observations Pel developed a series of boxes inspired by online stores such as Amazon, Bolcom, Zalando, Coolblue or Hema. The boxes are highly accurate hand-painted replicas. The boxes are shipped and displayed in the city center by the artist, as part of Art au Centre fifth Edition. The window storefront maps the increasing air traffic in the near future.

At first sight the delivery boxes look similar to disposable cardboard packages. Yet from close-up they are the product, meant to be kept instead of disposed.

Pel’s work questions the impact of online shopping seemingly immaterial, on our urban landscapes. The effects of high-speed delivery services and the relation to international airport hubs consist the focus of her practice in the Euregio.

L’exposition a été rendue possible grâce à l’appui de l’Ambassade des Pays-Bas en Belgique.