Art and Trade Fairs

-
Recently I came across the news that Chicago’s Old St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church is no longer hosting its World’s Largest Block Party. The 35-year-old, two-day festival of music and food drew thousands of people to the business district where Old St. Patrick’s Church is located.
The pastor, the Rev. Tom Hurley, says that the "summer event environment in Chicago is more competitive than it was 35 years ago and more difficult for the 175-year-old church to navigate.

I have always had mixed feelings about the art and trade fairs that pop up like mushrooms in Chicago and its suburbs, in fact all over the country, every summer. On one side, I am proud of the tradition and the cultural heritage they offer to their audience,but on the other hand I am frustrated by the overwhelming corporate presence in them. They all look the same and they have lost the local flavor they carried in the past. Around twenty years back, each fair was different than the others, and it represented the neighborhood merchants and artists.

I very well remember that the  Halsted Street Market Days started as a way for the local businessmen to attract people to the neighborhood by displaying their goods on the pavements outside their shops.The local businessmen organized and participated in the fair. Another example is the Taylor Street (Little Italy) fair which really had a feel of the neighborhood. Retro on Roscoe has nothing retro anymore, other than some old cars parked in a lot. Now, these fairs are controlled by various corporate bodies  like fast-food chains that end up creating the same milieu in their restaurants,except for a change in the décor here or a change in the plan of the restaurant there.
Another aspect of this corporate control is the entrance fee. They use ambiguous language on the tickets to tell the visitors that the fee is not mandatory, but the area is blocked completely, and the fee is more than strongly encouraged. We should not be asked to pay to walk on the streets of our city. I guess a lawyer knows the implications of this better than I, but I find it unreasonable, at the least.




I wish we could get back to the good old fairs that were organized by the local merchants and artists.These local stakeholders were invested in their neighborhoods which benefited from them, instead of some entity that is coming from outside and whose priority is to make as much money as possible from the participants and the visitors.

****

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Media—Frenzy and Fallacy

-
Image
Media is important. It may sometimes be biased but it is not fake, and it is a beacon that throws light onto the corrupt political systems. It shines a light on the frustrations and misfortunes of our society. But it often overlooks our blessings, our aspirations, and our strengths. In the present time, when the news stations have become twenty-four-hour loudspeakers of doom and gloom, their adverse effects on our lives are evident. These loudspeakers in our living rooms often induce frustrations, hopelessness, stress and even depression. A friend of mine said that you just have to turn the television off and all is quiet. I guess that’s true, but it seems that media is as addictive to many people as nicotine, caffeine and Facebook, and to turn the switch off is not so easy, particularly when our anxieties are at a peak because of lock-downs, racial discrimination and social injustice. Even during times when life has fewer waves, media hinders our inward focus and draw
Read more

New Voices

-
Image
Many new voices that we hear more and more today in politics, business and art and culture were not heard as recently as fifty years back. Colonialism, slavery and economic repression never let these voices surface and come onto the world stage. Slavery/Colonialism This is not my attempt to equate slavery and colonialism. Slavery was and is far harsher than any colonial era in history. My intention is to bring all repression due to race/color under one large umbrella.There is a difference in degree, but the repressors have the same goals,in which the greed of the offenders and lack of power-sharing play a big role. When a group is systematically repressed, its voice is crushed, its history is distorted, and its political and socio-economic freedom is violated. The power is with the colonizer, and as a result, the native culture is portrayed as low, lacking high morals and ideals. During the colonial era, the powers (whether they were British, Spanish or any other) tried t
Read more