A primary goal for many visual artists, documentary and filmmakers is to provoke emotion from the viewer. The movies we watch, the dramas, and even the adverts are made to move the audience.
JM Fellous once wrote in the The American Journal of Psychology: “Emotional responses are often regarded as the keystone to experiencing art, and the creation of an emotional experience has been argued as the purpose of artistic expression.”
The new Heinz Innovation Centre in The Netherlands gave us a very exciting opportunity to create a 20metre feature wall - the perfect time to express the emotive connotations of a world-famous brand.
Steeped in over 100 years of history, this gave us plenty to work with but we had to incorporate just the right amount of heritage with enough of their innovative and future-centric vision.
The wall was divided into 57 different art-boxes; covering the techy side of recipe testing and Heinz’s innovations in their sector, alongside (and just as important) the retrospective, historical and heritage-based concepts too. This had to create feeling and nostalgia. We tried to achieve this through the use of materials that embody the world of Heinz.
From fabricated fridge doors in evocative aquamarine-baked-bean-can-blue, fit with coloured magnets, to Heinz’s face created using Heinz’s top secret tomato seeds. We also wrote brand mottos like “From field to fork” in forks. There’s kitchen tiled boxes, classic glass ketchup bottles inviting the viewer to read the company motto emblazoned within, even flip-top ketchup lids revealing moving images of Heinz Ketchup factory!
This isn’t just about art anymore. This is about generating feelings, emotions, nostalgia. Advertisers have used the power of emotion to enhance their message, why shouldn’t artwork do the same?
This is wonderfully summarised in the follow-up documentary made in honour of the new opening. A film entitled “The night before the official opening of the Heinz Innovation Centre” saw HJ Heinz himself, (an actor but very believable all the same!) walking around the Centre, testing recipes. His warm and comforting voice narrating the story of the company and his values as he walks. It's emotive, it's powerful.
It finishes with him standing in front of the wall, a moment that made all our hairs stand up on end.
The evocative memories and the story of HJ Heinz encapsulated within the art wall bring back personal feelings of family, the home and family dinners, but also the heritage and ultimately the history of an internationally recognised family brand.
The Heinz 57 Wall is a project we were so proud to be a part of, it’s safe to say we’ll never look at a tin of Heinz Baked Beans in the same way again.
It’s amazing what art can achieve…
http://www.heinz57wall.com
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