TRADING TABLE. 8 SEPTEMBER 2007


Auckland based artist Eve Armstrong has been popping up all over the place recently with her Trading Tables project. Investigating the ideas of consumption and exchange, passers by are invited to exchange ideas, objects, skills and advice for anything found on the table. Armstrong has also created a 'How to' manual which coaches the Trading Table beginner through the steps to hold their own table.

Inspired by Armstrong's informative manual and tales of trading success, HSP decided to hold their own table in the wilds of the City Mall, to engage with Armstrong's ideas and gauge how the practice would operate far from its originator. On a beautiful Christchurch day guitar solos, home-grown garlic, old bicycle helmets, zines, rosemary plants, and body scrub were traded back and forth. People enthusiastically embraced the barter system, and while there were definitely quibbles in the way value was sometimes allocated, traders were usually active and interested.

Stay tuned for an essay on the Trading Table paradigm from Christchurch based artist Zoe Thompson-Moore, herself an artist interested in social and community based art practice.

FREE! - Trading Table - EXCHANGE! BRING THINGS TO TRADE FOR SOMETHING ON THE TABLE: items, ideas, information, skills, services 1 DAY ONLY ! ~ DON'T MISS OUT! ~ 11am - 3pm, Saturday 8 September, City Mall - corner High & Cashel Streets ALMOST EVERYTHING ACCEPTED! PLUS! - already available - books, bric-a-brac, recipes and much much more... JUST INCREDIBLE!