Free Shop

SUPERFLEX started the Free Shop project in Bremen in 2003. Since then, Free Shops have been realised in Japan, Mexico, Poland, Denmark, Norway and the USA. It can in principle be carried out in any shop (from a greengrocer’s through to a pharmacy or a snack bar). When they go to the cash desk, customers are given a receipt totalling 0, i.e. they don’t have to pay for their purchases. There are no signs in the shops themselves announcing that goods or services are “free of charge”; only when you come to pay does it become clear that this is no ordinary purchase and that the conventional logic of purchase – goods for money – has been turned on its head.

Free Shop is based on an agreement made between SUPERFLEX and each shop owner: the Free Shop Contract. This explains the concept and the rules. The shopkeeper can establish an upper limit of free goods and/or the estimated amount. This is not openly advertised in the shop, just as SUPERFLEX’s initiative is not widely reported.

Free Shop disrupts the internalised automatism of buying and selling goods or services for money. Ultimately, the banknote has a value because a social consensus and legal basis have been established around it. SUPERFLEX’s works not only raise questions about internalised forms of commercial transaction, but also examine the responsibility of the individual, whether one chooses to exploit opportunities to enrich oneself or instead share the chance with as many other people as possible.

In September 2018 Free Shop took place in the Lend and Gries district. The names of the participating shops were announced only after the end of the project.

Thanks to many people and shops, the Free Shop project by the artist group SUPERFLEX was able to be active for 24 days in 12 shops not far from the Kunsthaus Graz.