It is a collaborative work in an attempt to engage people in discussion with their
public officials about the war, a dialogue stemming from the knitting circles and
upwards with balaclavas as the teaser for dialogue, or the centrepieces for a multi-
plicity of new “material publics” (Marres 2008).
By these means the activism of crafts takes on to plug-into the political systems as
in Mazza’s example in very hands-on ways, by commenting on the war efforts by
making things, forming small publics around the items, underlining the state-
ments. Yet there are also other ways that DIY practices are plugged into other sys-
tems, such as shopdropping where activists replace hacked commodities into the
store shelves.
shopdropping
“Shopdropping”, the art of reverse shoplifting, is another example of craftivism’s
intersection with hacking practices. Shopdropping is the insertion of modified
commodities back into the shelves of the malls, or introducing “alien items” to the
space of commerce as a comment to consumerism and material culture. Here con-
sumer behaviour, as well as the tension between original and copy, is the topic of
discussion and hands-on intervention. The practice does not always contain a crit-
ical or oppositional edge, as it is also a form of self-promotion or guerrilla market-
ing, performed for example by independent bands and local poets inserting their
own material into the shelves of established stores. Nevertheless, there can be a
veritable war taking place on the shelves as consumers engage to advocate their
ideas and beliefs in the aisles. For example it is not uncommon for religious groups
in the United States to advertise by placing their material onto the shelves, and for
other activists to immediately launch a counterattack.
At Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore., religious groups have been hitting the magazines
in the science section with fliers featuring Christian cartoons, while their adversaries
have been moving Bibles from the religion section to the fantasy/science-fiction sec-
tion. (Urbina 2007)Zoë Sheehan Saldaña is an artist who has
performed several shopdropping actions. One was
at the Wal-Mart store in Berlin, Vermont, in- She purchased a tank top for $9.77 from
the shop and then duplicated it by hand, match-
ing pattern, fabric, and embellishments. She also
attached the original tags to the duplicate. After
that, her duplicate, the artwork, was returned
to the rack in Wal-Mart for potential sale at
$9.77, while the original Wal-Mart item became
a gallery piece.
Purchased item (left), duplicate (right).