I AM NOT FOR SALE

JE NE SUIS PAS À VENDRE / I AM NOT FOR SALE

Tomas Lagūnavičius

On September 5, 2026, in Lille, France, within the setting of the major Braderie de Lille flea market, multidisciplinary artist Tomas Lagūnavičius performed “I AM NOT FOR SALE.” The performance was created without a stage, decorations, or a pre-invited audience — the urban environment itself, the acts of buying and selling, buyers, sellers, and random passers-by became the context of the performance.

At the centre of the work is the relationship between the human being and the commodity. At a flea market, objects are evaluated, bought, sold, or rejected. Lagūnavičius transfers this logic into the field of human existence, asking: Can human value be measured in the same way as the value of an object? What happens to a person when nobody chooses them?

Theoretical Framework

The performance can be interpreted through Karl Marx’s concepts of the commodity and exchange value, Jean Baudrillard’s critique of consumer society, and Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of social and symbolic value. These perspectives make it possible to understand that value is not merely an inherent property of an object — it is produced through social relations.

However, Lagūnavičius goes further by asking whether such a logic of value can be applied to the human being.

Michel Foucault’s theory of power allows the performing body to be understood as a body that is socially evaluated and disciplined, while Byung-Chul Han’s analysis helps us understand the contemporary individual as a subject who turns themselves into a product — optimising, promoting, and selling their abilities, time, and image.

Thus, the statement “I AM NOT FOR SALE” becomes a form of resistance not only to commerce but also to the broader logic of transforming the human being into a commodity.

Artistic Methodology

The methodology of the performance is a situational intervention within an existing commercial space. The artist does not create a separate stage because the market itself already functions as a social theatre.

The audience was not invited — it was already there.

The objects became a conceptual counterpoint to the human body.

The process of commerce became the dramaturgy of the performance.

The body became the primary artistic material.

This minimalism eliminates the need for decoration and focuses attention on one fundamental question: Can a human being exist beyond the boundaries of market value?

Critical Interpretation

The central paradox of the performance lies in the situation of the “unsellable human being.”

An object that nobody buys becomes unwanted. But can such a logic be applied to a human being?

In contemporary society, people are often evaluated according to their productivity, usefulness, status, attractiveness, or demand. Zygmunt Bauman has analysed the phenomenon of “wasted lives,” in which certain people become, from the perspective of the system, unnecessary.

Lagūnavičius’s performance brings this question back into everyday experience:

How does a person feel when thousands of people surround them, yet nobody needs them?

And even more radically:

If nobody buys you, does that mean that you are worth nothing?

The performance provides no direct answer to this question. Its answer lies in the title itself:

I AM NOT FOR SALE.

This is not a statement that a person is “expensive.” It is a statement that human value should not be reduced to a price in the first place.

Conclusion

“I AM NOT FOR SALE” can be understood as an existential and social manifesto in the form of a performance. Braderie de Lille becomes a metaphor for contemporary society, in which everything can be evaluated, selected, and rejected.

Within this system, Lagūnavičius introduces a human being who refuses to become a commodity.

Therefore, the central question of the work is not:

“How much am I worth?”

It is much more radical:

“Do I have value even when nobody wants me?”

It is precisely this tension between price and value, demand and existence, usefulness and the human right to simply be that forms the conceptual foundation of Tomas Lagūnavičius’s performance.

References

Baudrillard, J. (1998). The Consumer Society: Its Myths and Structures. SAGE.

Bauman, Z. (2004). Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts. Polity.

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Harvard University Press.

Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage.

Han, B.-C. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power. Verso.

Marx, K. (1976). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1. Penguin.

Also read: “I AM NOT IN THE LOUVRE MUSEUM COLLECTION”.