Sept. 22 (UPI) — A former 7-Eleven store in Seattle has been transformed into an “Inconvenience Store” featuring items including pre-tangled USB cords.
The interactive art exhibit features “abstracted interpretations” of goods one would normally find at a store, including shoulder bags made from old Cheetos and Lays packages, beeswax egg candles, a candle that doubles as a yard stick and key chains resembling snack foods like Nerds Gummy Clusters, Oreos and Goldfish crackers.
The store also features a “landline iPhone” that, when answered, only plays “Vertigo” by U2.
“Your favorite corner store, reimagined entirely by artists,” the store’s organizers wrote on social media. “Art is inherently inconvenient. In a society that rewards efficiency and mass production, artists do things the hard way.”
The store was created by artists Lilia Deering and Mary Anne Carter, who previously spoofed IKEA stores with their 2024 exhibit “STÖR.”
Inconvenience Store features works by about 70 mostly-local artists spread across 14 departments. The items can really be purchased for amounts ranging from $1 to $10,000.
The organizers said the unusual exhibition is aimed at making art accessible to everyone.
“Sometimes white-wall galleries can feel really intimidating to people, not really have price transparency, or it can be hard to know how to buy things, if you can,” Deering told the Seattle Times. “So we want to make purchasing art really approachable — because it’s so important, as an artist, to be able to sell your work if you want to keep making art sustainably.”
The exhibition officially opened to the public on Saturday. The store is open from noon until 4 p.m. on weekends.
