Farmers Market Review is a performative installation celebrating generosity, art, produce and community. Referencing 19th century tent revivals, roadside vegetable stands and Vaudeville variety shows, Kjellgren Alkire will host a buffet of liberal agricultural values and Americana sing-a-longs. Positioned under the Saint Paul Farmers Market Downtown shelter, Farmers Market Review will roister well into the night. Cheering the very produce and people that will replace it with actual food early in the morning of Sunday, June 9th, this gathering of glad-tidings will grow comfort and joy.
In and around this shelter of welcoming, participants may join in a non-religious revival, extolling the benefits and glories of magnanimity, culture, produce and friendship. The public will be extolled with sermons and songs championing the Farmer-Labor movement and other Growers of Goodness. Various wooden seats will be available for guests and visitors to rest along their late-night wandering. Folks should come share goodwill, graphic veggies, favorite tunes and sincere encouragement until 2am.
Kjellgren Alkire will preach a sermon series around four themes: generosity, art, produce and community. Between homilies, the passing public will be encouraged to articulate their own witness to the glories of Lowertown and its best attributes. Singing from the American songbook, Farmers Market Review will celebrating the bounty of the land, the brilliance of solidarity and the labor of valiant citizens. Together, we will strive to evoke feelings of shared investment by preaching and singing.
Gathering friends and strangers being together, Farmers Market Review will:
recall the greatest organic carrot in the Middle West,
sing in harmony (or out of tune entirely),
host a series of guest presenters who will give testimony to their agricultural efforts and current communities,
cultivate feelings of goodness and togetherness and gardening,
& lastly, laugh (even a little bit) at bizarre amalgams of antiquated religious structures and liberal politics.