Maria & Ion Ocâ's dairy, Iaşi

Maria’s grandparents lived in this house, before she and her husband Ion took over the smallholding, in a countryside village about 15 minutes drive from Iaşi.

Maria has delivered handmade cheese, cream and occasionally milk to nine customers’ homes in the Tataraşi, every 10 days or so, for the past 40 years. Some of the older people died and now she delivers to their descendants. She delivered these products throughout the communist era, outside the state’s rationing system of the 1980s: a small-scale, subsistence ‘black market’.

Maria learnt to make cheese from her grandmother, who also used to make butter. “She’d put the butter on a plate and make it round like a haystack and then take the spoon and make all sorts of patterns. People bought it by the 100gms. Both my mother and my grandmother used to go market. And I used to go with them to the market. Now I sell at the market. I sell whatever we have, beans, corn, in summer we sell vegetables from the garden. In the market, customers look at the way we look, how clean our hands are, how clean our apron is, what the basket looks like, how white the cheesecloth is. They look and then they choose whom to buy from.”

Some years Maria sells wine, but this year she’s putting it aside as her son is getting married this coming summer. They sell homemade plum brandy. They have various fowl, goats, sheep, cows, horses, honeybees and a dappled, snorting pig, which is being fattened up for Christmas.

We were talking in Maria’s back room of her house, when she flung open the doors of a cupboard to reveal her cheese-to-be. Each day she milks the cows and stores the milk in these earthenware jars. The jars were made by Roma pottery makers, who used to come around and sell at the door, but they don’t come anymore, so when Maria breaks a pot, she can’t replace it.

“If both shelves are full of pots, then I know I have enough for all of my customers. It takes about a week or ten days to fill up both shelves. The cream rises to the top. And then it has to sit and curdle because you can’t put fresh milk into cheese. The milk curdles and you separate that out and make the cheese with it. You warm it up on the stove and you put it in cheesecloth and leave it to strain, leave it dripping until it is dense.”

Customer Care, Iaşi

Stop and think of a shop you care about? In some research conducted in different neighbourhoods, we invited passers-by to consider this question. Over four days, on the streets of Alexandru, Copou, Pacurai and Tataraşi, we asked people to tell us about a shop that they care about, and talk about the reasons why they felt a ‘bond’. Bonds, we thought, are often made in particular circumstances – a shop may have helped them through hard times, or fits conveniently into their daily routine, or represents something culturally significant they feel needs supporting in the city's changing economic environment.

Through this research, we wanted to better understand how locals felt about the city’s evolving shopping landscape, and potentially find a lead to a shop (or context) that we could develop a project with.

“I care for Carrefour/Kaufland/Billa …”, was (un)surprisingly, a popular initial response.

Supermarkets are a recent phenomenon in Iaşi, which perhaps offers some explanation for people’s enthusiasm. Billa was the first to arrive 5 years ago, followed by three Kaufland stores, one G-Market, and two Carrefour’s – including the new development pictured here in Pacauri, on the periphery of the city.

Lower prices, convenience and better quality were often cited as reasons why people care for Carrefour and their competitors over more local stores. “I don’t trust local shops so much, because of the quality of the products. The big stores are better,” explained Constantin, a retired factory worker.

Below the surface of this initial response we heard talk suggesting a deeper truth. Our friend Alexandru told us that even if it has been some time since 1989 revolution, people are still affected by it. He said there is a kind of euphoria when you have a choice. “In communist times there was just one type of yoghurt, one type of bread, one type of butter. But now we can choose whatever we like. Consuming things is a calming activity for people. We like it.”

People really value the idea of consumerism, and the power of consumerism is all too evident from the myriad of choice on the supermarket shelves. “You can find everything… now we have access to all kinds of products”, echoed Constantin. For some, just having access is enough: “I even enjoy going to Carrefour, even when I don’t buy things”, a woman in Tataraşi told us.

We met a construction engineer called Carmen who lives in the quiet suburb of Copou. She doesn’t necessarily agree with the shopping culture promoted by the supermarkets. Despite using them from time-to-time when pushed for time, she thinks places like Carrefour and Kaufland, “sell people products they don’t need”.

When she does have the time though, one place she really loves to go is the clothes shop, BSB. It’s on the second floor of the recently-renovated Moldova Mall, a former socialist Supermagazin in the city centre. “They have the type of clothes I prefer - modern, with my favourite colours.” She visits maybe once a month, not to buy, but to browse and rummage for inspiration. “I don’t have a lot of money so I make my own clothes. I go to see the trends.”

Lucica Popovici also lives in Copou. She prefers to get her milk, eggs, cheese and wine from the Moirei family house – pictured above. She’s been buying from her neighbours for 20 years. “I have my people,” she told us. “They keep cows and chickens at the back of their house, so everything is fresh compared to buying them in a store. I can also buy on credit”. The table in the gateway at the front of the house functions as the counter. We’re told this kind of domestic economy is limited to the minority garden suburbs, with around 80% of Iaşian’s living in urban apartment blocks. It established itself as a way of supplementing food tokens and cash in communist times, and as such remains popular with older generations, but less so with younger. Lucica says she’s also part of an informal network where people from nearby villages come and sell their produce door-to-door, and is a big fan of Alexandru Market.

Lucian is a university graduate whose life wouldn’t be the same without the bike shop near the train station. He goes there to buy equipment and get his bike serviced and repaired by their mechanic, who he now counts as a friend. Like him, the staff are fanatics, and they organise cycling tours through Iaşi’s hills.

Sinziana Moldoveanu declares her care for homeware specialists Bamboo:

Radu Vâscu particularly likes Zara at Julius Mall, a large, new and relatively up-market development near the university campus, because ‘it combines pleasure and utility’.

"Julius Mall is something beautiful. It’s more beautiful than other shops”, we were told by Ionut, a little later in the day. He likes Versace (on the 1st floor), but Armani is his favourite. “When I come back from work abroad that’s where I go… It doesn’t matter that the prices are high, the quality is the best!”

Two people spoke of their own shops. Eugen set up his secondhand clothes shop in the Galata neighbourhood 6 months ago, and he cares about it because it is ‘for his children’. Elena has run a kiosk for 15 years on the Alexandru Esplanada. She buys good quality produce from Cash & Carrys – Selgros, Metro, Siraj – and from supermarkets, which is then bought by local people, including those who are old or infirm and unable to travel to the supermarkets. In that sense she cares about the suppliers, but also cares about all those she serves.

Guan Han Ji & Xiao Wang Qi, NanTing village

Guan and Xiao have run their grocery in a backstreet of the village for 25 years now. They live in the rooms behind the shop, but used to live in a house in a neighbouring village until that village was one of the many demolished in 2004 to make way for the construction of eight new university campuses known as Guangzhou's ‘University City’.

Completed within 8 months, University City brought an influx of jobs and money to NanTing. Many new shops and restaurants opened on the outer edges of the village to cater for the huge new student population. Not many students take a walk down Guan and Xiao’s street though, so commerce there has stagnated. Now, the scales are rusty and the shelves are relatively bare; packets of noodles, cigarettes, alcohol, soft drinks, household products are sold to their friends and neighbours. The odd bottle of quality spirits gathers dust. Xiao says before University City, they opened all day every day and had a busy pool hall on the 1st floor. Now she opens up 8am to midday and 5pm to 11pm. Afternoons are spent weeding a local farmer’s fields because she can earn more money that way. Similarly, Guan delivers gas cylinders throughout the village.

They host card games most evenings in front of their shop. Xiao told us they no longer pay for a license to trade and nobody cares to ask, so they carry on regardless. Despite the new prosperity in the village, many locals, like Guan and Xiao, resent the fact they lost their homes without adequate compensation. There is still a refugee camp close by that continues the protest and attempts to prevent the planned destruction of a temple. A friend of ours says that NanTing is threatened too, with plans to build a huge shopping centre on the land.

Camelôs, Rua 25 de março, São Paulo

Pictured here (left to right) are Dener, his father-in-law and wife Simone. They’ve been selling replica designer t-shirts, retail and wholesale, from this regular pitch for 5 years. They are amongst the thousands of ‘camelôs’ (informal traders) working around Rua 25 de março; an extraordinary daily commercial battleground where thousands of Paulistas and visitors to São Paulo come for a bargain.

The father-in-law is not looking at the camera because he’s heard the call ‘o rapa’ and seen the oncoming Metropolitan Police. Background left, fellow traders who’ve also heard the call, begin to scoop up their stock into large bags. Seconds later, Dener quickly gathers all their stuff into their big denim bag (on the right), slings it over his shoulder and walks off.

This situation plays itself out every 10-15 minutes. The “o rapa” is called by the Camelôs to warn their fellow traders of the threat posed by police patrolling the street. A pair or a group of police take a slow walk down the street, prompting every Camelôs and their stock to disappear from view. A few minutes later, when the Police themselves have disappeared, traders return to their pitch. As our friend Tulio describes it, its like Moses parting the sea. Except, the police are not quite so benevolent. If the Camelôs are not quick enough, they risk their stock and equipment being confiscated (and appropriated by various government departments we are told), and ultimately, arrest.

Trading on the street begins about 3-4am, 6 days a week. We learnt from a man selling belts that Camelôs can sell in relative peace from 6-8am, without police interruption. Otherwise, the city’s policy is to use a consistent show of force to control and, it seems, eventually eradicate informal trade on this street. Everyday ends with a big 'o rapa' at around 4pm, when a flood of police and city trading officials prompts a mass exodus. The 'big one' started at the moment we where taking this photograph, so we were not able to get a picture with everyone’s full attention.

Dener and his family love what they do. He says they love the excitement, the community, the people, and the trade. They respect that the police have a job to do; even though they’ve had their stuff confiscated more times than they can remember. But they make a good living, R$100 profit most days. Earning more than when he was a civil servant in a youth prison, or when he worked on the armoured van cash deliveries/collections.

With their help we arranged some short, in-situ performances and photo/video shoots with their customers, and those of fellow traders up and down the street.

Not everyone seemed as comfortable with the police pressure, especially those who had lived in São Paulo for only a few weeks. Their eyes nervously flicking up and down the street to best see when the Horrapa is coming; a little like Simone's father.

Alice, Avon Consultant, São Remo, São Paulo

Alice sells Avon from the front room of her home where she lives with three generations of her family. She’s built her customer base from the community - everybody knows she’s the woman to go to for make-up. She no longer has to visit her client’s homes, they come to her and order from the catalogue. She doesn’t have the products in stock and puts in monthly orders to her regional supplier. She also has a sideline in small fashion items such as flip flops.

What interested us about Alice was her very local expression of a global brand. We photographed her clients outside her home, one of whom, her neighbour, Nilda, held a beautiful little dog called Totti,  like the Italian footballer but pronounced Tor_che. It is one of the many pedigree ‘toy’ dogs owned in São Remo and interesting to see that show dogs are not the exclusive preserve of more affluent communities.

Train Vendors, CPTM train network, São Paulo

Informal train vendors find themselves in a complicated situation at the moment. These are poor people who need to sell, but to do so they have to meet the challenge of the black-clothed security guards, which people call the “urubus” (an urubu is a kind of vulture).

The vendors appear on the trains, between stations, selling water, snacks, sweets, pens and other items small enough to carry en masse, and that passengers will want buy. The guards watch over every platform of every station and ride the trains, trying to inhibit the vendor's work. This everyday cat and mouse behaviour has gone on for some years, but now the train company (CPTM) are in the middle of a crackdown, allied to the cleansing and modernisation of their service, which seems to include getting rid of the vendors. Occasionally, armed police search suspected vendors (anyone who looks relatively poor and is carrying a bag) at the city's main station interchanges, and there is talk of undercover officers on the trains.

One passenger said the crackdown had lasted about a year. Before then, the vendors were quite well organised with each operating on certain tracks and so on. But now it's chaos and they are selling wherever and whenever they can. Another passenger said the vendors were so poor they would aspire to being a Camelhoe on Rua 25 de marco.

Their situation makes them hard to track down and work with in any depth. When we did, with help from our friend Felipe (pictured in the red T-shirt), it was difficult to gain their trust in the time they had between stops (suspecting we were undercover police). One seller we managed to speak to was Robinson, who had been working the train for three years to support his family. He works 6-7 hours a day, 6 days a week and buys stock from Bras market. That day, he was selling 10 pieces of bubblegum for R$1, despite having most of his stock taken by the police earlier on. Robinson calls himself and other train vendors 'Marreteiros'.  

We also shot some video of others at work (with their permission) and caught a few snapshots.

Lucinha's, Salvador

Lucinha runs a 'quitanda' called "O Bar de Dona Lucia" in the Ribeira district of Salvador. A quitanda is a shop that has been set up in the front room of a house; it also means a small grocery shop. She sells mangos, salad leaves, spring onions, but mainly sells beer alongside home-flavoured cachaca and ginger/tamarind spirits. Customers can drink at the bar or at four plastic tables out on the pavement/street.

Lucinha doesn't have a licence to sell alcohol. The licences are expensive. Occasionally, the inspectors come by and she says it is not possible to pay for a licence (she makes profit of approx R$10 (or £3) from each crate of beer she sells). She visits the police station, explains her situation and they turn a blind eye. The mangos are almost entirely profit as she buys them either from street vendors who visit her shop or she goes to the market.

She started the shop with a couple of bottles of Cachaca and a carton of cigarettes from her father-in-law. Now, twenty years on, with the support of the business, the house has grown room by room and now stands two stories high. More importantly, it supports her, her husband, her two daughters and her son's ex-wife and three children, all of whom live with her in the house.