Consumer Research Center/

A public arena and research platform inhabited the form of a bookshop instigating questions about the place of consumer forms for building community in the contemporary arts.

Curated by James Voorhies

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
2015–2017

Made possible with funding and staff of Harvard University’s Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts with additional support from Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies; realized within my responsibilities as Director and Curator of the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts

Consumer Research Center/ engaged in consumer activities as models for social connectivity in twenty-first-century arts organizations. CRC/ was responsive to the hybridization of contemporary life and culture, where a “bookshop/screening” or a “coffee bar/artist talk” offers the expanded possibility for viable economic sustainability as well as uniting communities in a singular physical arena. CRC/ probed the consumption of both immaterial and material culture as part of the overall experience of arts and entertainment, where traditional differences between visitors and consumers are increasingly blurred in cultural spaces today. CRC/ critically reflected upon these contemporary conditions while leveraging the potential of combining consumer exchange and cultural experience.

CRC/bookshop was the first installment of Consumer Research Center/. The CRC/bookshop provided students and visitors with access to more than 500 titles by artists, critics, filmmakers, and cultural institutions from around the world. As a ground for cultural production, it also hosted numerous activities that transformed the consumer outlet of a bookshop into a bookshop/exhibition, bookshop/screening, and bookshop/talk.