TIMES SQUARE — From Polish Pierniki cookies, to Japanese chocolate-dipped Pocky candy, to Vietnamese G7 coffee, the Big Apple’s diversity is on display through its consumption of international packaged foods.
And in a new art installation at the Times Square Visitor Center, Japan-born artist Hidemi Takagi looks at how the decorative wrapping on the packaged food imported from over the world reflects the world of the New Yorkers who consume it.
Takagi’s Blender project, hosted by the Times Square Alliance, offers 95 images of packaged food imports from 47 countries found in shops in immigrant neighborhoods across New York City. It is the first public art project to be projected on the seven video monitors at the entrance to the Times Square Visitor Center.
The images are accompanied by descriptions of the neighborhoods and locations of the shops offering tourists a different way to experience New York City.
“New York is a big city built of immigrants,” explained Takagi, whose work debuted Thursday and will be on display for the next month.
“I just happened to collect these products at first. Theirs colors always appealed to me,” said Takagi, who spent five years working on the project. “I did more research later on.”
Takagi, who came to New York a decade ago after being raised in Kyoto, wrote in her mission statement on Flickr that "being in this city can feel like visiting another country."
"People celebrate the customs and holidays of their country by wearing folk costumes on the street. Awnings with messages in entirely unfamiliar alphabets are completely common. Many of them advertise goods catering to specific nationalities and cultures, especially foods that were brought here or requested by immigrants living in neighborhoods like Brighton Beach, Jackson Heights, or Flushing. The packaging of these products is a form of art that tells stories and helps remind people that their culture is alive. In this way, immigrants in New York City can prevent the fading of identification with their native culture."
"The look of these food packages often has an old-fashioned feel: bright, saturated colors and outmoded designs that are rare in both Japan, where I’m from, and America, where I now live. Through this project I hope to show that art can transcend time and language even through the simplest imagery found on a candy wrapper."
Takagi was present at the lobby of the Visitor Center on 46th Street to give out candies to tourists who visited the center.
Anthony Khan, 18, a high school student from Toronto, was exuberant when he was handed a Filipino sweet.
“It’s really informative. You get an education about the history and culture from a small little thing,” he said. “And it’s fun for everyone.”
Maya Armon, 18, from Tel Aviv, Israel, got a piece of candy from her own country.
“I really like it,” said Armon, who was on vacation in the city.
Tim Tompkins, president of the Times Square Alliance, said he hoped the project would “touch people who travel to Times Square.”
Tompkins said the project was chosen from a pool of 400 due to its “beauty” that “represents the diversity of urban life.”
Photographs from Takagi's “Blender” exhibit can also be seen on the sides of 25 trash cans on the Broadway Plazas around Times Square.
“Times Square has probably more languages than any other place in the world,” he said. “Every day hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world seamlessly mingle in Times Square making it the perfect stage to spotlight Hidemi Takagi’s unique images which offer us all a lens into New York’s immigrant communities and culture.”
