Contents May Contain Food hero
2026

Contents May Contain Food

BFA Thesis

Disclaimer

Case study under construction. Check back soon for the full project.

Abstract

Ultra-processed foods account for more than 60% of calories consumed by the average American, linked to surging rates of chronic disease. The food industry spends over $14 billion annually on US marketing alone, using cartoon mascots, saturated color systems, and decades of cultural mythology to hook children and build generational brand loyalty — while FDA-adjacent language obscures what these products actually are: industrially engineered assemblies of modified starches, artificial dyes, and addictive flavor compounds designed to make you eat more, buy more, and keep coming back for more.

This project infiltrates the visual language of the supermarket and turns it against itself: a suite of shelf-ready snack and beverage brands whose familiarity is the trap. Across a series of material experiments, the work brings the fine print to the foreground — the dense ingredient panels, pharmaceutical-grade warning language, and regulatory disclaimers that consumers have been conditioned to ignore. Lenticular prints collapse the distance between food industry executives and ulterior motives. A parody film trailer reframes the supermarket aisle as a horror set. Together these pieces are designed to make the normal feel strange — to surface the decisions embedded in packaging that has always asked to be trusted, never read.

Parody Product Suite
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A shelf installation of parody food products, designed to call out the sinister marketing tactics of the ultraprocessed food industry and the ingredients hiding behind them. Each product, from Fraud Loops to Mountain Don’t, replicates the visual language of real grocery staples, then turns it against them. Bright colors, friendly names, and familiar formats are repurposed as the vehicle for the critique rather than the target of it. LabSlop™ just makes the subtext visible.

Process Book Cereal Box Prize
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Calling Out the C-Suite

Fast food CEOs transforming into the aliens that took over the Earth in John Carpenter's They Live — Lenticular prints pictured below.

Thesis Trailer

Parody of the iconic scene from John Carpenter's “They Live”