One of the most noticeable features of the contemporary world is the mass consumption of medications and the use of advertising strategies that are similar to those of other consumer products. In the past I worked on texts made of acetaminophen pills, and I painted on canvas color blocks made from medication boxes. Based on this interest, and with the intention of creating an object with painterly qualities without involving a brush and paint in the traditional manner, I began to collect medicine boxes, from my own medicine chest and later with those of relatives and friends.
In the process, I found a connection between pharmaceutical products and fast food chain offerings massively available in Bogotá and in most of the world. I decided to show this through an image made from elements associated with the McDonald’s “Happy Meal”, which is an icon for the industry of foods of this type. I included as theme or main element of the image a group of medications that are prescribed for illnesses such as depression and anxiety and which in combination represent a type of “Combo” that promises –or so the patient expects – “happiness”. Using the fired yellow background typical of the “Happy Meal”, I worked on a composition of the medication boxes mainly displaying their painterly attributes (color blocks) to make it as “appetizing” as possible, and I took a picture of the “product”.
“Happy Meal” consists of four digital photographs produced in high resolution, each containing a “Combo”, and they are exhibited in transparent acrylic frames on a high section of a wall in the same manner as the fast food restaurant “displays” at the point of purchase.
