TheFLOWmarket™ is a project that utilizes traditional exhibition spaces to send an original message via an even more original medium. It is a supermarket selling consumer awareness. TheFLOWmarket™ has isles, shelves and registers like any other supermarket. But the cans, cartons and bottles on the shelves are all empty. The project idea is purely metaphysical and so are the products for sale. Entering the shop you can buy things like "Clean air", "Commercial free space", "Consumption moderators", "Good vibes" and "Holistic thinking" dressed up as basic commodities in standard containers.

The approach of the project is highly metaphorical and both the employees and customers become part of a theatrical interaction that deals with basic values in todays society. The play becomes an opportunity for personal reflection that can help the process of exploring possibilities for development of our common world. It basically transforms abstract values into physical objects that can be picked up or left on the shelf. The mere symbolism of the products immediately makes you think in terms of priorities. Moving through the isles will you pick up a jar of "Inner calmness" or a carton of "Empathy"?

TheFLOWmarket™ method is highly interesting in relation to social design in its use of symbolism. The project provides scenery that allows its customers to grasp complex prioritization between basic values through physical representation of these values. The customers constantly make symbolic choices with high degrees of abstraction that relate to the way we live together in today’s society. In this way a process of exploration is facilitated that is likely to have real effects on this same society.

TheFLOWmarket™ is an instrument for communication. It facilitates a dialogue between the producer and the consumer. The producer provides the choices available to the consumer, through the process of producing, and thereby sets the scene for the value discussion. The consumer then has to choose between the readily available commodities, and the choices that are made send a message back to the producer. What makes this different from normal market mechanisms is that the motivation behind the purchase choices is reflection and indeed self reflection. Questions are asked that usually bare heavily on the mind because of their grave importance to the welfare of the world, but being in the roll of a consumer provides the customer to feel free to choose arbitrarily. It becomes fun.