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Oxford Street Candy Shops

Kinetic Installation, 2023

Dimension: 100cm(L) 120cm(W) 400cm(H) Variable 

Material: Shopping trolleys, candies, coins, circuit board, motors, 5inch HDMI display monitor. 

The inspiration for this work comes from shady activities taking place in candy shops on Oxford Street. If you have passed by or visited those shops, you might wondering: why so many candy shops on Oxford Street? How do they make profit? Or even afford rent? Those shops are all remarkably similar: paneled ceilings and harsh strip lights, weirdly few customers and thousands of highly priced American candies stacked floor to ceiling. After conducting investigation, I noticed that The Candy World building itself is technically owned by the City of London, widely referred to simply as the City, the primary central business district of London and one of the leading financial centres of the world. In 1923, it sold the property on a 2000-year lease, effectively relieving all responsibility In 2008, that leasehold was bulked for 40 million pounds by a Hong Kong firm called Glory Step Investments, domestically in the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven. These candy shops tend to openly engage in money laundering and tax evasion on a high street in a public view. Such an absurd and ridiculous technique is like a drama, reflecting the real financial order of modern society. 

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