In the small country town of Tingha in northern New South Wales sits a supermarket seemingly frozen in time: the Wing Hing Long and Company Store. Its shelves are lined with old products – canned food from the 90s, shoes from bygone eras, boxes of soap with retro graphics and bottles of spray-on starch. “It’s almost like you’re stepping back in history,” says artist Simone Rosenbauer. “It’s so amazing!”
None of the products are for sale: this supermarket, established by storekeeper Ah Lin in 1881 to service the region’s tin-mining boom, is now a living museum – conserved by the local council after it closed in 1998 after nearly 120 years of business.
