| Description | The International Village Shop is a self-initiated, collaborative and trans-local network of shops in which new and existing goods from rural communities are being made and traded.
Some shops are temporary, others permanent. They take on the shape of market stalls, honesty boxes, trading tables and roll-out blankets. Most of the shops can be found in villages, but the shop also frequently enters the art world.
The goods in the shop are collectively developed and produced, and stem from group processes in the different rural communities we work with. Each group decides what could be a good product to represent and embody a particularity of their village, and the new goods make direct use of local knowledge, skills, and remaining natural resources or means of production. The process is critical, productive and open, reflecting on notions of the ‘local’, ‘traditions’ and ‘identity’ as important but evolving signifiers. |
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