MarketPlace

Charlotte A Morgan

MarketPlace is a site specic project taking place atChestereld Market Festival from 29-31 October 2009, as partof the

:place Derbyshire contemporary art programme.The project sets out to explore changes in global and localtrade and their inuence on the structure of towns and cities,exploring the local and global manifestations of themarketplace and its shifting position socially, spatially andeconomically.MarketPlace combines a newly constructed market pavilionwith this publication, a collection of visual and textualresponses to ideas of the market place contributed by a groupof invited Artists, Writers, Architects, Curators and Educatorsas well as active local people. The MarketPlace pavilion alsohouses physical elements of the collection, which comprises arange of forms from critical text to documentary video,interview, sculptural object, event documentation andparticipatory artwork. Whilst considering ideas, interpretationsand uses of the marketplace, the contributors also address itssignicance within contemporary art and cultural activity, andrefer to wider notions of community, locality, exchange,interaction, commodity and the object.The MarketPlace pavilion structure was devised to re-imaginethe traditional market stall and suggests possibilities foralternate forms and uses, combining multifunctional, adaptableand mobile elements. Developed in collaboration witharchitects James Halsall, Jordan J. Lloyd and Rob Taylor, thespace acts as a physical record of visitors to the space byaltering structurally as items are taken away.This project comes at a time where the Communities and LocalGovernment Committee are reporting on the need to supportthe health and social benets and sustainability of thetraditional market

and takes place in the context of Chestereld, an historical market town in which the marketstill has a signicant presence and in which discussion aroundthe future of the traditional market is especially pertinent.MarketPlace asks questions - about our relationship withbuying and selling, the ties between trade and our identitywith place, and the ways in which social and economic shiftsmay combine with advancements in technology and design tocreate new forms and processes in that directly inuence oureveryday existence.

1.Communitiesand LocalGovernmentCommitee,

Market Failure?: CantheTraditional Market Survive?

http://www.parliament.co.uk