Shopping with Santa Claus

Trying to fill ourselves with the best of the Christmas spirit, on the 23rd of December we decided to accompany Santa Claus’s envoys on their search for Christmas gifts.

With a very, very limited budget because of the crisis, we had no choice but to stay far away from the customary temples of consumerism, to find an alternative means of acquiring their merchandise during these times.

We walked with them, searching the overfilled garbage containers, in which we were able to find, besides the expected broken objects, other which were completely usable.

Our Christmas action, of minimum cost, we call Shopping with Santa Claus and to carry it out, we simply acquired two typical Christmas dolls, from the corner store, we covered them with lights and transporting them in a shopping cart, we walked during the night, through the streets in the center of the city, inspecting the discarded objects we found along the way.

Through our nighttime intervention, we want to remind you that in Madrid, the number of people that eat and live from what they find in the garbage containers, has grown in an alarming manner since the beginning of the crisis, in spite of the fact that City Hall, completely against these practices, decided in 2009 to punish anyone caught in the act with a fine of up to 700 euros.

On this busy night, we were accompanied by Gustavo Sanabria, to whom the photos belong.

Time of installation: 5 hours.
Damages: none.
Exhibition time: 5 hours.

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