Working for Fair Trade ...
The Art History Department will host a reception for its latest exhibit, "Trade Fair TO Fair Trade," on Saturday, Dec. 4.
The reception, free and open to the public, will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. in the lobby gallery of O'Shaughnessy Educational Center.
The exhibit, which focuses on Guatemalan textiles but also features the domestic art of a number of Central and South American countries, is on display in the gallery and will run through Jan. 28, 2011. The gallery will be closed Dec. 24 through Jan. 3.
... in Guatemala.
Fair Trade is more than fair trade coffee. Artisans, many of whom are women, play a major role in Fair Trade programs, providing much-needed economic support in countries where there are both high unemployment and limited educational opportunities, but at the same time rich local traditions on which to draw.
This wide spread system of exchange has moved a long way from its early days when on-site trade fairs and markets were little more than tourist bazaars, and where the artists were frequently dependent on middlemen with neither conditions nor price necessarily equitable.
The items in the exhibition are on loan from Ten Thousand Villages, 867 Grand Ave., St. Paul, and Lynn Barnhouse LLC, and available at their locations.
