Welcome to the Porta-Mall (Buskerfest '08)

I'm getting that sense of déjà vu: that been there, done that, bought the overpriced t-shirt feeling that hits when I find myself in shopping malls or when I’m driving past the umpteenth complex of big box stores that dot the 401. It’s not a comfortable or comforting thought: I’m being sold the same old junk by the same people, except that I’m not in a shopping centre: I’m out on Toronto’s Front Street ostensibly enjoying Buskerfest, a four-day-long public festival dedicated to street performers from around the world.



Sure, the whole thing receives massive corporate sponsorship. There are bank and TV network logos plastered everywhere. And I can live with that. After all, I’m savvy enough to see past the barrage of advertising and I do ascribe to the notion that the wealthiest segments of our society (be they individuals or corporations) should pay to bring art to the masses. But I can’t see the artists for the all the junk for sale. For every performance space there are at least a dozen merchandise tents. Buskerfest, it seems, is not so much an festival of the arts as it is an open air shopping mall.



And just as your typical mall has a standard set of vendors hawking a standard set of wares, Buskerfest features the stalwarts of the urban street fair scene. Here’s your purveyor of mass-produced African sculptures. There, there and there are your sellers of “handmade” jewellery assembled with store-bought beads and baubles. Walk half a block for crappy five-dollar sun glasses. Stop at the corner for made-in-China hempware that has nothing to do with sustainable development. You get the picture. Food and merchandise vendors line either side of the street and the bulk of pedestrian traffic on the closed-off thoroughfare gravitates to these tents. Sadly, it seems, the urge to shop is far greater in most people than the desire to witness a performance.