Seasons End Liquidation Shop

To view the shop catalogue: https://littlememories.zone/

June 13 – October 30, 2023

In a business sense, liquidation typically involves selling assets in order to generate cash and pay debts. While it is often a precursor to a business closing, the process of liquidation can also be viewed as one of transformation; it is a signal of the end of something, a means of taking stock, and an instrument of recuperation and redistribution.

Seasons End Liquidation Shop is a variety store, celebratory funeral, and ritual ending of part of Teresa Tam’s artistic practice. It is a place of exchange intended to consider many of the items used in a series of Tam’s previous projects that have been running since 2013 and all connect thematically to the concept of various kinds of shops.[1] Throughout these past projects, Tam’s accumulation of objects (those found, purchased, and produced) has been closely connected to questions concerning identity, authenticity, labour, social commerce, practical and emotional attachments, and as vehicles for bodily interaction.

Here, Tam marks the end of the Shop Series through the trade of the objects themselves, as well as their attendant stories, connections, and contexts. Rather than cash, the liquidation of these items intends to yield relational assets through a connective and reciprocal experience of information sharing.

Situated at street-level on 9 Avenue SE, Seasons End Liquidation Shop is also a nod to the past, present, and speculative future of the neighbourhood—a wink to the gentrifying face of the main street, from its past of ubiquitous thrift and junk shops to the current proliferation of trendy boutiques and eateries. It also reminds us of how these transformations—via the ebb and flow of obsolescence, relevancy, and capital—impact livelihoods and are often the agents of change and displacement. However, by offering as a contrast and counterpoint a different kind of relational economy, Tam suggests that through the act of liquidation new kinds of ideas, identities, and connections can emerge. – Text by Shauna Thompson

Store hours: 12-5pm whenever possible, usually Saturdays.

[1] Projects include: [net.café] (2013), Perfect Memory: Authentic Gift Shop (2017), PSEUDO CAFÉ (2018), an ordinary hole-in-the-wall along macleod before the railway underpass (2019), 2 cents cart (2019), and My Heart’s Delight Capsule Vending Machine (2020).

Little Memories Cart Interventions

Over the duration of the exhibition, the cart invited the public to come and eat the snack of the evening, in exchange for writing a message that was burned in a ceremony at the end of the event.