The ObserverPhotographyIt’s surprising what you can learn in one north London Waitrose, as art curator Ingrid Swenson discovered when she began hoarding lists found in trolleys and baskets
The collection began sometime in 2014. I didn’t make a conscious decision to start it. I cannot remember the first list I picked up, other than the fact that it contained only a few items. It had been left in a basket and, in one of those clarity-of-vision moments, I instantly thought about the shopping list in a completely new way. It seemed as if someone’s entire world had frozen and been captured in a single, modest entity. This thought must have remained with me because I recall that, within a relatively short space of time, I had pocketed a few more lists. I had the sense that I was on to something.
It is astonishing how many shopping lists one can find once you start to look in earnest. To the untrained observer, they seem extremely scarce, but once you “get your eye in” you begin to see them with far greater frequency. On a few occasions I found as many as four or five in one visit. To achieve this could sometimes involve scrabbling about in the ranks of shopping trolleys stored both in the car park and large entrance area, or walking unusually slowly through the aisles fixedly focused on the floor. Nobody seemed to notice or care that there was this woman behaving in a strange way. The supermarket is a great place to behave oddly in: people just look away.
Although I never gave that much thought to whether or not there were other shopping list collectors out there, I’ve become aware of a small community of us in the past couple of years. Collections in the UK, the US and in Europe have been the subject of books, websites, an exhibition, a weekly newspaper column, even a Ted Talk. This has led me to believe that there must be collectors worldwide – in North Korea, Nigeria and New Zealand. Yes, the intrinsic fascination of shopping lists is beguiling and universal.
Although it appears that I’m in good company, I am fairly confident that my collection is unique. My shopping lists have all been collected according to two fundamental, self-imposed rules:
They were all found at the Waitrose supermarket on Holloway Road, London N7.
They were all found by me.
The lists have mostly been abandoned or lost, not maliciously littered. Simply left behind, wholly beyond use and forgotten about. I’ve often checked the rubbish bins for them, thinking that people would dispose of them responsibly, but it is surprisingly rare to find lists that have been thrown away intentionally. Personally, I am not aware of ever having lost a shopping list. Left at home, frequently, but not lost while shopping. The possibility remains, however, that perhaps some shoppers may have left their lists intentionally to be seen by others. Perhaps they are meant to be found and read as a way of marking territory, and to share with the world their gastronomic preferences? It is possible to identify several examples of lists as being by the same hand – shoppers who repeatedly abandon, drop or misplace their list. In these cases, the items on the lists as well as the physical size and type of paper used also tend to be very consistent. One shopper in particular leaves their lists behind with such frequency – always in the trolley, always on the same note cards and always in the same large, cursive, stylish, self-confident script – that one can only assume that these are a deliberate form of communication. Their author is saying: “Look at my world of wonderful food that I love to eat.”
Shopping Lists: A Consuming Fascination by Ingrid Swenson will be published by Cheerio on 14 September (£9.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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