fruit stickers

work in progress, watercolor

I am planning a new project called Fruit Stickers where I paint labels that are meaningless to a customer but everything to the seller. At grocery stores, an item is valueless if it doesn’t come with a bar code. Taking away these scan stickers makes them unidentifiable. They are labeled with this sticker. The design of the sticker that only the cashier looks at. The confusion of whether I should scan the sticker or type in the codes I’ve memorized. The sticker that customers peel and throw away without a second glance. The number on the sticker the customers don’t know. A foreign number that holds value to the cashier only farmers. Where does the fruit come from. The fruit isn’t native. They ship it from across the sea. How old is this produce. What pesticides to they put in it. Who put the sticker on the fruit. What labor went into getting this fruit into my hand. Who slaved to pick these fruits. The consumer is unaware the physicality behind the sticker. Was it genetically modified? Was it grown organically and in the traditional manner? Was it injected and grown with fungicides and pesticides that pose risk upon consumption?