Supermarket
My head is spinning with so many thoughts … thoughts that are closely related to being at the fair, and those that have a less direct connection but have been sparkled by something that I have seen, heard, or found myself talking about. I am well and truly overstimulated!
What to do with all these thoughts? How to keep them live? How to give them time and space? How to understand which (if not all) have substance?
Something that runs through, or perhaps is a foundation to, my thoughts just how ’at home’ I feel at the fair. I am very conscious of how important the artist-run scene is to me, and how strongly I believe in its role. Half jokingly and half seriously I suggested to another artist that artists who show (t)here five times should get a PhD. The truth in my suggestion is that what is on show at Supermarket is genuinely research. What I see and experience at the fair is artists doing what they have to do – finding news ways of making and communicating – without the imposition of academic/institutional/commercial conditions. I may not ’like’ everything that I see but I admire, applaud, and will defend every artists’ right to do it and keep doing it. It is vital that there is space for artists to get feedback from their peers, to articulate concerns in ways and means that make sense to, and belong to, their own sphere(s) of activity and engagement. It might be called a fair but I think its sole is an exposition.
exposition
/ɛkspəˈzɪʃ(ə)n/
noun
noun: exposition; plural noun: expositions
1. a comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory.
“a systematic exposition of the idea of biodiversity”
Similar: explanation, description, elucidation, explication, interpretation, illustration, account, commentary, study, article, essay, thesis, paper, treatise, dissertation, disquisition, critique, criticism, appraisal, assessment, discussion, discourse, exegesis
Music the part of a movement, especially in sonata form, in which the principal themes are first presented.
2. a large public exhibition of art or trade goods.
“the exposition will feature exhibits by 165 companies”
Similar: exhibition, fair, trade fair, display, show, presentation, demonstration, exhibit, expo
3. archaic the action of making something public.
“the country squires dreaded the exposition of their rustic conversation”
Origin: latin; exponere – exposito – exposition
Middle English: from Latin expositio(n- ), from the verb exponere ‘expose, publish, explain’.
