Claire Fontaine
"Humans Wear Stuff"
2020/2022

Limited Edition
Produced by enSoie

A work in the show "Retail Apocalypse"
Currently on view at Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal

In 2001, The Harvard Guide to Shopping notoriously asserted that shopping had become the last remaining form of public activity. The eight-hundred-page tome was an exploration of how retail had refashioned cities at the turn of the century. In 2005, less than five years later, Amazon introduced its Prime membership service and accelerated the shift to online commerce. By 2017, reportedly up to half of American households were subscribed to Prime. People were choosing to spend more on food and travel. The so-called “experience economy” was producing new spaces for constructing one’s identity and values. Shopping as an urban activity was entering its terminal phase.