2020
Archival pigment print on fine art paper
Each print is hand-signed and individually numbered by the artist

Building on her visual exploration of Hong Kong’s vernacular and material culture, Julie Progin enjoys spending time in the local wet markets where she archives everything from food to commodities, stalls to transport. Favoured by vendors for their lightness and capacity to insulate, Styrofoam boxes are often used both for transporting and displaying fresh foods. In her drawing from the Styrofoam series Julie Progin depicts towering stacks of these ubiquitous polystyrene containers echoing the piles of boxes precariously balanced atop carts waiting to be moved around the markets as well as the architecture of pyramids and ziggurats. Julie Progin shares, “As a celebration of the everyday, I wanted to transform the mundane Styrofoam box from a commonplace object to a cultural artefact. My work sheds light on anonymous disregarded objects that are familiar to us all and part of our daily life but often overlooked.”