The Poverty Line (Tomatoes) (Mauritius)
Stefen Chow
Singaporean, born 1980
Huiyi Lin
Singaporean, born 1980
2010-2020
A color inkjet photograph that arranges tomatoes on a newspaper to visualize the poverty line in Mauritius by equating an economic threshold with everyday food items.
You first notice a disciplined field of glossy red tomatoes laid out over monochrome newspaper, each fruit’s size, scar, and shine turning dry headlines and numbers into a tactile, domestic measure.
The work makes abstract statistics legible by translating income thresholds into familiar objects, continuing a documentary‑conceptual practice that uses everyday materials to reveal and question social and economic realities.
Medium
Inkjet print
Dimensions
each: 15 9/16 × 22 13/16" (39.5 × 58 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of the Fund for the Twenty-first Century and Committee on Architecture and Design Funds
Accession
95.2023.3
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
