by JULIE LIARDET
GENEVA – People strolling, music, smiles, bursts of laughter. Customers walk between clothes and trinkets, homegrown zucchini and children’s games, spread on tables or on the ground. A neighbor has brought his electric razor; another has just found a book by French sociologist Marcel Mauss.
This kind of flea-market-with-veggies could be coming to your neighborhood soon. With a twist: here everything is 100% free.
The gratiferia (free fair) concept originally comes from Argentina and then expanded to neighboring countries and all of Latin America. The idea was quickly taken up in the U.S. and Canada, and this year, it has arrived in the Old World. Sales and swaps are completely forbidden at gratiferias. Everything must be in good condition, and of course, a bit of civic sense is required. Do not show up with a van and load up everything in sight. This free fair aims at “liberation from materialism,” with the goal of leaving behind “the oppression of the economic system.”
Ariel Rodriguez Bosio, the brains behind the gratiferia, has posted a YouTube video entitled “gratiferia, una economia de la nueva era” (“gratiferia, an economy for the new age”). In the video, where he appears as a sort of philosophical/spiritual guru of the no-growth movement, the Argentinian explains that he started the first market of its kind in his apartment at the beginning of 2010.
The gratiferia arrived in Europe mainly through social networks. The idea of anti-materialism engaged people, for example Céline, 39, who coordinated one of the first such fairs in France, at the beginning of September in Châteauneuf-sur-Charente. The goal is “to pass along things we no longer need, that can be useful to someone else,” she says. Each person can come and drop off or take all kinds of objects, divided into categories. Céline’s sister Isabelle, 43, who organized the event with her, estimates that 1,500 people came to the fair, which took place on land lent by the municipality.
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