Barter-based art fair launched
A barter-based youth fair aims to foster creative exchange with a difference
It looks like any flea market at first sight - assorted books, crafts, faded treasures and oddities. But anyone visiting the YMCA's DIY Art Appreciation Stalls event in Tsim Sha Tsui today will soon notice a difference. Although there may be some haggling, trading will be entirely through barter.
You may exchange a DVD for a vintage toy, an old magazine from the 1960s or a gadget assembled from discarded material. Or you may be able to get an impromptu sketch from an artist in exchange for an anecdote from personal experience. The important thing is: no money will change hands.
This is the second barter fair that Sandy Chan Man-yee has organised. The YMCA senior programme officer says she staged the first last year to "encourage communication and build relationships between people".
Flea markets have been mushrooming across the city. But unlike community efforts she encountered on her travels in Europe, where people often brought items collected over years, Chan was distressed to find many vendors in Hong Kong sourcing goods online from sites such as Taobao.
These vendors approached the fairs as a strictly commercial exercise, she says. "I wondered whether a non-monetary market could bring a fresh perspective to Hong Kong, where mainstream culture is largely driven by money."
Chan started to recruit young people for the first DIY Art Appreciation Stalls last year - the only criterion for admission being that no money would change hands.