Literature tips:
UN/FAIR TRADE – The art of justice...
...is the name of an exhibition at Neue Galerie Graz, Austria, which can be visited until November 25. Apart from documentary approaches to the issue of fair exchange and trade through the use of photography, film, video, text and images, objects or spacious installations, visitors can also actively participate in the discussion about the economic mega issue.
The Un/Fair Trade exhibition highlights the requirements for fair exchange, fair exchange itself, as well as the effects of fair exchange as a sociological issue with the support of socially relevant art: in doing so, research and art are clasped together. Projections of fact-based websites accompany and frame room installations, documentary material and selected individual exhibits of about 80 artists from all continents all dealing with the issue of "fair exchange" in many different ways. The overall effect is a scenario comparable to a newsroom providing dense images of another kind of economic management.
The newsroom quality is ensured by the Un/Fair Trade online community that has been built up since 2007 in a Wiki format and included in the exhibition. Empirical and cultural-anthroposophical theories of exchange are put up for discussion; considerations about the marginal conditions for fair exchange are made and the current state of fair and unfair trade is highlighted – all this from a political perspective as well.
Well-known "debaters" like Julian Nida-Rümelin, the former German Minister for Education and Cultural Affairs, who will be giving a speech on November 8 at 7 p.m., and Branko Milanovic, economist at the World Bank, and numerous others take a stand on basic issues concerning fair exchange. State-of-the-art Internet technology will ensure that the visitors of the exhibition will be able to participate in this dialogue with the aid of easy-to-use controllers. Neue Galerie Graz presents a totally new exhibition concept that is both an art and science exhibition granting the issue of fair trade the significance it deserves today.
Address: Neue Galerie Graz, Styria, Sackstraße 16.
The book on the exhibition:
UN/FAIR TRADE is directed to all those who like to think about and develop a different economic future regardless of whether they are theoreticians, practitioners, politicians or art enthusiasts, and who are interested in fair exchange. For UN/FAIR TRADE is a volume of art, theory and inspiration illustrating all the things that fair trade can be.
Christian Eigner / Peter Weibel (publishers.),
UN/FAIR TRADE - Die Kunst der Gerechtigkeit ("UN/FAIR TRADE – The Art of Justice")
ISBN: 978-3-211-73221-2
www.neuegalerie.at
 Café Wunderbar – Coffee not only for drinking ...
You can smell and taste coffee. But now you can also listen to and read it. No, not from the coffee grounds, but as a book and CD: Café Wunderbar (Beautiful Coffee) is the title of the nice-looking package consisting of a book plus CD and real, fair-trade coffee.
"What do you like best when drinking coffee?" That's what GEPA, Europe's largest fair-trade company, and the Protestant magazine of chrismon probably asked themselves – and they found a common answer: "Listening to and reading music". The result is Café Wunderbar – a book about coffee, a CD with lively sounds and fair-traded organic coffee. All that packaged and illustrated with loving care in a 50s retro design by the illustrator Larissa Bertonasco.
The book compiles clever, entertaining, funny and informative columns round about the coffee theme by authors like Ursula Ott, Rafik Schami, Thommie Bayer and Rainer Moritz. In doing so, it answers such basic questions like: "Why do many men prefer milk froth to sex?" or "What is the difference between cafés in Damascus and Germany?" or "Why does  Nescafé taste good only at camping sites?" In addition, you learn about backgrounds and interesting details about fair trade, for example, the beginning of the famous Nicaraguan coffee. This comes with a tasty, fair-trade organic coffee of the same name coming from Africa, Mexico, Bolivia and Guatemala, while the CD runs in the background playing light lively music by artists like Sara Tavares, Rosalia de Souza or Quadro Nuevo. What else could you wish for when taking a short coffee break or having a cosy Sunday afternoon coffee?
The book: "Café Wunderbar – Fragen und Antworten zu einem heißen Getränk" ("Beautiful Coffee – Questions and Answers about a Hot Drink"). edition chrismon, 15.00 euros
The CD: „Café Wunderbar – Weltmusik, Jazz und Easy Listening zum Entspannen“ ("Beautiful Coffee – World Music, Jazz and Easy Listening for Relaxation"), edition chrismon, CD in a digipack, retail price 15.00 euros
The coffee: Café Wunderbar, fair-trade coffee, full-blend, 250 gr., retail price approx. 3.69 euros, and organic espresso with whole beans, 1 kg, 16.95 euros; includes only selected arabica and robusta beans
Pictures: Michael Ondruch
Our Fragile World: The Beauty of a Planet Under Pressure
von Caroline Lucas (Vorwort), Troth Wells (Autor), Caspar Henderson (Autor)
Movie tips:
'The Real Dirt on Farmer John'
'The Real Dirt on Farmer John' is a wonderful movie telling the life of John Peterson. Since his late teenage years, he has been a farmer on his family's farm in the third generation. He experiences countless failures and catastrophes in his life that lead him to the brink of human and economic ruin.
Only when John decides, more intuitively than deliberately, to convert his farm, 'Angelic Farms', to organic dynamic vegetable farming do things look up again for his life and the farm. In the meantime, his farm is operated by more than 1,600 families as a so-called 'community' farm. US Time magazine gave him the title: 'The Al Gore of Community Farming'. Al Gore himself says about the film: 'A real and gripping story told with insight and humour.' The film won several national and international awards, among other things, the renowned 'Golden Snail' at the Slow Food Film Festival in Italy.
However, Farmer John does not only sit on his tractor; he is also a creative artist, a committed environmentalist, a rebel and provocateur and sometimes he lives out his slightly eccentric ways with wild costumes and a pink feather boa. He is an extraordinary man whose inspiring life story told in a panorama documentary ranging over a period of 50 years touches and, in a positive sense, 'stirs' all those who have seen it.
Please find further information about the movie and the movie theatres showing at:
http://www.farmer-john-film.de
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