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IPFS News Link • Politics

The 2016 Presidential Campaign--in Toilet Paper and Hot Sauce

• https://www.wired.com

On the off chance you'd like a memento to remember the 2016 presidential election by, Edoardo Delille and Giulia Piermartiri have some suggestions. A roll of Hillary Clinton toilet paper, perhaps? Maybe the always popular "Anyone But Trump" T-shirt is more your speed.

The Italian photographers combed shopping malls throughout the southwest, cataloging the funny, vulgar, and sad trinkets that reflect a campaign best described as ugly. "You can understand a lot about this election by looking at them," Delille says of the photos in Hillaryous. "It's a kind of violent election, not physically but with words."

US election paraphernalia is as old as US elections. George Washington's supporters wore metal pendants bearing his initials, and candidates—and those looking to profit from them—have slapped slogans on everything you can think of and a few things you probably can't. Like, say, hot sauce. Delille and Piermartiri found no end of angry bumper stickers, ironic hats, and even breath mints while photographing a Guardian story about Latinos who support Donald Trump.

The photographers visited about 15 shopping malls, where store clerks let them turn fitting rooms into makeshift studios. They shot each object with a Nikon D800 against a brightly colored paper backdrop, illuminated by a single softbox light to cancel any shadows.

Of all the things the two of them photographed, one in particular caught their eye—a coffee mug bearing the likeness of the GOP candidate, flipping the bird over an obscene slogan. Delille couldn't resist. "I eat my cornflakes out of it every morning," he says. 


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