Artist Benjamin Slinger captures millennial nostalgia in a new body of work entitled ‘Empire’. Here, the British visual artist creates a series of wire-frame paper lamps constructed from vintage fast-food paper bags. Launching with a show in London (23-25 July at 96 Robert Street, London NW1 3QP), the series of lamps will be available from the artist's online store.
The McDonald’s and Burger King bags were collected over the past three decades, and the resulting lamps sit somewhere between sculpture, design objects and cultural artefacts.
Discover 'Empire' by Copyright Slinger
For the 'Empire' series, Slinger was inspired by the classic ‘Akari’ paper lanterns designed by Isamu Noguchi and the graphic identities of multinational fast-food corporations.
While the lanterns are functional objects, the artist’s swapping of washi paper for fast-food bags, with their corporate and consumerist graphics, is a critical reflection on brands within contemporary life – bold and demanding attention. Through the evolving bag designs, the series also documents changes in popular culture over time.
Such dives into design and socio-economic history are not unusual in Slinger’s practice, which spans sculpture, painting and writing. However, ‘Empire’ emerged from one question: ‘How can one produce a design or mass-market object as a work of art?’
Slinger has lowered the boundaries between quality design and mass consumption. The viewer is invited to consider how something of value is produced, how certain objects acquire cultural authority, and how consumerist imagery is embedded in daily life.
An initial edition of 50 lamps will be released across three sizes and more than 25 individual designs. Each lamp is stamped, numbered and signed according to its edition.
‘Empire’ is on show from 23–25 July 2026 at 96 Robert Street, London NW1 3QP, slingercopyright.com