Replacement Pickles

Filed under Ongoing Event, Installation, projects

Event Information

Artist: Benjamin Thorr Brown

“Replacement Pickles” will collect 10 pickle recipes from individuals or families that have been displaced from Greenpoint or Williamsburg. These 10 pickle recipes will be prepared, jarred, and ready for tasting and sale.

For many decades, Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn have been home to families of immigrant communities. Within the last decade these neighborhoods have been rapidly gentrified. As a result of this transformation, many families have relocated to more affordable housing in the NYC region. “Replacement Pickles” will document the identities, recipes, and the pickles as dictated by those who have left Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn. “Replacement Pickles” will collect 10 pickle recipes from individuals or families that have been displaced for financial reasons from the aforementioned neighborhoods using personal contacts, housing boards, and community networking as a starting place. These 10 pickle recipes will then be prepared, jarred, and ready for tasting/sale at 10 stands located in front of the former residences of the pickler. If possible, the former resident will be on site helping to sell the pickles. The participant will experience the project through a printed map that indicates the locations of the various pickle stands.

“Replacement Pickles” is about the consumerization of identities through exclusion and displacement. Each pickle jar and pickle style will represent an individual through a photo, recipe, and “food narrative” that have become ubiquitous in any organic market. The price of a jar of pickles will be determined by the “displaced” ranging anywhere between $5 and $50, the artist receiving a small portion to cover costs, the “displaced” receiving the rest. The exhibit becomes a performance of capitalism where an exchange between art consumer and displaced producer is given a mediated, critical space for reflection.