The Plastic Bag Store began as a joke. One day, I was watching someone in a store triple-bag all of my groceries that were already in bags, inside of boxes, inside of bags. It occurred to me how over-the-top and ridiculous it is how much packaging we are using every day. I thought a grocery store that only sold packaging, a Plastic Bag Store, would be hilarious, but sadly not that far from reality. I would design satirical labels and sculpt fruits and meats from bags, caps, lids, and wrappers that I collected from the trash. I would open the store in Times Square hidden among other stores. People would encounter it by accident and without much explanation. That was the idea I had in 2012. It really was kind of a joke idea—a silly thing I would tell others for a laugh.
At that time, I was working on...