200 Numbered Sugar Cubes by Simon Heijdens x United Statements

Created by Simon Heijdens and United Statements in 2003, 200 Numbered Sugar Cubes formed part of Your Choice, the first section of Droog’s 11th presentation in Milan during the Salone del Mobile.

The project presented two hundred identical sugar cubes, each marked with a different number in chocolate. A familiar, almost automatic action—taking a cube of sugar—was suddenly turned into a personal decision.

Visitors could look for their age, a lucky number or another figure with a particular meaning. Yet the significance of their choice lasted only until the cube was dropped into a drink. As the sugar and chocolate dissolved, the feature that had distinguished one cube from another disappeared completely.

Through this small intervention, the project explores how people create differences between otherwise identical objects. It shows how even an ordinary product can become connected to identity, memory or superstition when a choice is introduced. At the same time, it questions whether that choice has any lasting value once the object is used.

Following its Milan debut in April 2003, the wider Your Choice exhibition was presented at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, Kulturhuset Museum in Stockholm and Villa Holešovice in Prague.