Do you recognize any of the everyday items in this larger-than-lifesize soft sculpture shopping bag? Bronx-born artist Lucia Hierro cuts and sews oversized squishy fabric versions of medicine and beauty products commonly purchased in U.S. drugstores for resale in the Dominican Republic as part of the informal economy there. While in the U.S., Lucia and her mother would purchase such products for her grandmother before visiting her in the Dominican Republic, crossing geographic thresholds. The work echoes 1950s and 60s pop art—think of Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes or Campbell’s Soup cans. However, here Hierro comments on care and transactions that flow back-and-forth between physical boundaries of community.

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