The International Village Shop was set up as a walk-in stall for two months during 'Trade Show' at Eastside Projects In Birmingham.
From the press release:
‘Trade Show’ is a group exhibition that exercises the function of art to exchange, present and enact different economic practices and cultures of trade. Over the last decades artists have claimed and reclaimed trade as a socio-cultural space by producing their own shops, swaps, stalls, deals, exchange centres and distribution systems.
The first trade of ‘Trade Show’ is with the economic geographer Katherine Gibson who is writing an essay in exchange for James Langdon’s redesign of ‘The Economy as an Iceberg’, an illustration she has used in presentations around the world since 2001 to symbolize her feminist critique of political economy that focuses upon the limiting effects of representing economies as dominantly capitalist.
The ‘iceberg beneath the water’ is revealed within Eastside Projects as a series of trading stations take centre stage, including the ‘International Village Shop’, ‘Feral Trade’, ‘Field Cycles’, ‘Editions Shop UK’ and ‘Open Shop’.
The ‘International Village Shop’ run by Myvillages is an ongoing trans-local production and distribution space for goods with strong local connections. For ‘Trade Show’ the shop offers its biggest selection of collectively developed goods so far, alongside short production documentaries and a series of workshops.
Trade Show is curated by Kathrin Böhm and Gavin Wade.
