I Came for Ice Cream confronts the normalisation of war through the language of commerce and childhood innocence. A street vendor sells missiles from a cart traditionally associated with sweets, while a child stands waiting, not in fear, but expectation. The title is deliberately disarming. It reflects how conflict is repackaged, sanitised, and sold to the public: weapons become products, destruction becomes policy, and moral consequence is hidden behind procedure and distance. The umbrella above the cart functions as false protection, a fragile symbol of safety sheltering instruments of mass harm.
The red missile at the centre subtly breaks the monochrome palette, drawing the eye and marking complicity. It is the “choice” within the display, the product that will be taken.
By placing a child opposite the vendor, Mr Phantom implicates the future directly. This is not a scene of shock or chaos, but one of routine. War is no longer exceptional, it is transactional.
The work asks a devastatingly simple question:
If violence is sold casually, who is it really being sold to?
