Felted Food

Inside the Standard hotel in Los Angeles is a convenience store called Sparrow Mart stocked with typical products. Shoppers will spot peanut butter and cereal on shelves and fruits and vegetables piled in the produce section.

But Sparrow Mart isn’t your average grocery store: All 31,000 items are made of felt! British artist Lucy Sparrow and her team spent a year assembling, sewing, and hand-painting the stuffed products for the artificial convenience store.

The objects in the installation look mass-produced like many real American products. But each item is unique. And like a normal store, everything is for sale. Sparrow says her idea started with her childhood perception of the “Technicolor glow” of American culture.