Un pied dans le jardin de miel

Within the framework of Europalia Europa festival (2007-2008), the CIVA in partnership with a supermarket group organized an exhibition called Supermarkets of Europe 1957-2007 in La Cambre Architecture School.
Initially a mere financial supporter, the trade group became the very object of the exhibition, which illustrates the final outcome of the privatization of the cultural public services.
Brand does no longer restrict itself to advertising. From now on it has become an actor of history, a hero legitimized by the academic field. The customer has become a cultural receiver invited to appreciate the value of the brand.
The supermarket’s architectural approach proposed by the exhibition is used as a pretext for the audacious aesthetization of the agent of significant social transformations, suddenly cleared and rid of its many urban and social consequences.
In a textbook example of cooperation, the cultural and political officials displayed deliberate blindness and cynicism, a behavior deprived of any attempt at resistance against the colonization of cultural public services by a mundanely capitalist company.
In this context, guides and teachers put the finishing touches to the propagandist device displayed in the exhibition in order to leave its mark and to fidelize very young customers.