The Shopping series was made the year after I arrived in Amsterdam to study. Back then I was working in a very direct way – there was something new happening in my life and that same thing would appear in my drawings. Shopping, or the importance of shopping, surprised me in Amsterdam. There were so many shops around and so many people who went shopping to relax. I had neither the money nor background to dive into shopping, but I was observing, hearing, and making drawings with titles like 30% off.