Look at these wrappings with the eyes of an aesthete and be amazed by the weirdness of it all. What alien species would ever invent these fanciful shrimp snacks?
Body Emballage is a collection of originally 30 paper shirts made of disposable wrappings from Japan, Denmark and North America. By using materials from different parts of the world, cultural differences and similarities are illustrated graphically.
Shown here is an American shirt made from Nabisco’s ChipsAhoy Real Chocolate Cup Cookies with Reduced Fat, a Japanese shirt made of paper wrapping from washing powder with the description of how you do the proper washing and a Danish shirt made of wheat flour wrappings.
The special soft texture of the paper shirts is achieved by crumpling and ironing it repeatedly. The result is very comfortable to the touch and to the ear. The visual impression is fragile and delicate. In spite of the qualities of the material it is not suitable for mass production as the durability is not unlimited.
This collection was the beginning of a series of experiments dressing the body in the graphic language of disposable materials. The paper materials from the 3 countries represented in Body Emballage was later expanded to include paper and plastic materials from several other Asian, European and North American countries.
Exhibition
Designmuseum Denmark
Foto Annette Meyer
Exhibition of Body Emballage at Design Museum Denmark in Copenhagen where 30 paper shirts made of disposable wrappings from Japan, Denmark and North America were on show.