The Citizenshop

①

The Citizenshop is an exhibition about the commodification of Citizenship.

The Republic of Nowhere is a Passport booklet designed as introductory piece to 'The Citizenshop', an immersive exhibition making a social commentary on the commodification of Citizenship.

Citizenship by investment is an increasingly common practice that civilians can adopt to purchase their way into a country. By investing cash, or assets, they obtain a passport in exchange, within a relatively short time spam compared to citizenship by naturalisation.

This is a multimillion dollar business with an increasing number of governments worldwide joining such marketplace.

Nele Vos and I designed an exhibition making a social commentary on such practice, on the backstage of times of unprecedented forced migration since WW2.

My role was to consult on the whole experience, and contribute with the ‘Republic of Nowhere’ passport design in a collaborative team including Nele Vos, Cristina Salvi (exhibition designer) and Tommaso Catalucci (front end developer). 

②

The Citizenshop wasn’t just an immersive exhibition, but also a website.
At the entrance of the space, we’ve created a passport control experience.

The passport appears as reduced to mere commodity, embodying the fragility and corruptibility of our nation’s political boundaries within our global financialised capitalism.

The imagery inside the passport shows the two extreme sides of people seeking for citizenship today. On one side the millionaires and tax dodgers, on the other side the stream of refugees seeking for visas and asylum.

Visitors that are handed the passport are asked to input login data found in the first page of the fake document we’ve handed them, in a computer.

After that, they get access to a marketplace of citizenships where they can see stats, costs, and conditions of acquiring nationalities globally. They can then add them to their cart, in a simulated check out experience, which grants them access to the next part of the exhibition.

In a separate, darker room, a series of stories of refugees and tax dodgers are juxtaposed through the medium of protest posters, banners and national flags.

Visitors are asked here to share what citizenship means to them and how did this work made them feel, followed by discussions throughout the week of events following the launch of the Citizenshop.

︎London
French Riviera 1988
Lethaby Gallery
Clerkenwell Gallery
TATE Exchange TATE Modern