[Seattle-editorial] FP: Whirlmart performances target Wal-marts

[Gentry Lange]

Title: Whirlmart performances target Wal-marts
Sub: MEDIA LITERACY THROUGH COUNTER CULTURE

<p>By Kirsten Anderberg
<p>Whirl-Mart is a participatory, anti-consumerism, performance trend
started
  by the <a href="http://www.breathingplanet.net/whirl">Breathing Planet
Troupe</a>.
  It is art, performance, ritual, and meditation all in one. The Whirl-Mart
ritual
  involves a group silently pushing empty shopping carts through the aisles
of
  a superstore, wearing Whirl-Mart smocks. Utilizing tactics of occupation,
Whirlers
  call this symbolic spectacle a “collective reclamation of space that is
otherwise
  only used for shopping and buying.” Averting outright protest of the
“emptiness
  of material consumption,” they instead mimic the absurd shopping PROCESS
instead!
  When asked by Wal-Mart employees what they are doing, and knowing that
protests
  are not permitted inside Wal-Mart, they respond that they are
participating
  in a “consumption awareness ritual,” confusing store employees and
shoppers
  alike. And the good news is, Whirl-Mart is coming to a superstore near
you!
<p><a
href="http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=34056&group=webcast
">Click
  to read the full story</a>