Deluxe Market is an exhibition that my friend Hui and I put together. It reimagines the Asian American supermarket as a space for examining cross-cultural identity and ideas of beauty. Asian American supermarkets were a place where we nourished our long lost Asian identities; a place where dreams and desires lie in neat multiples, and aspirations are stamped into the names of the markets themselves (“Golden Grocery, ” “Good Fortune Market,” “Prosperity Mart”).

Dreams are the material of creation, and we sought to create a new universe where the rules are warped in space-time. Deluxe Market displaces the utilitarian design of the supermarkets with our posters, flower and vegetable arrangements, and a reconstruction of the grocery display of our dreams.

I arranged the florals and art directed the photoshoot for the posters alongside Hui. She later designed and had them printed.