Carrick-on-Shannon  Car Boot Sale
 
Players

Stall holders have many motivations to stand out in all weathers, week in week out: From clearing out household clutter to moving merchandise for profit; dealing in that which is unwanted to that which is dearly loved, a special interest or passion; or for the pleasure of handling beautiful or desirable objects. Some stalls sell goods to raise money for charities while most are simply trying to raise some extra cash supplement. For others it is the main source of income revenue and only one stop of many at other sales and markets made during the week. The boot sale also offers the opportunity to promote services, skills, trades and knowledge.

Regular stall holders form a core community composed of market traders, travellers, enthusiasts and supporters, and around this nucleus a transient community of passing traders gathers. Everyone is punter and player, buyer and seller participating in the complex world of boot sale relations.

The people who attend the car boot sale live a precarious existence, trading at the bottom of the economic pyramid where the status quo, the thin membrane of social order, can be disrupted by a simple act of legislation or policy intervention. At any particular moment the level of trade, the buying power of visitors, the composition of goods on offer, the mood of the people, observation of audio and visual codes, signs and socio-cultural identifiers make the event a significant barometer of the effects of current local/global situations.

Boot sale museum

The car boot sale functions as a museum in motion employing voluntary (at times unwitting) public ownership/stewardship of an archive built from what is actually relevant and tangible to its custodians.

Memory and meaning produced by means of objects and testimonies manifest a form of signification. Here the 'marginal' stage a repossession of personal and shared histories running parallel to mainstream discourses.

Things that hold their value will continue to circulate over time but the nature of value that maintains circulation varies; it can relate to the use value, monetary value, beauty as a value, curiosity, obsolescence, historical interest or importance etc. Someone may buy an object and then return it to the network at a later occasion when interest has waned or usefulness has ceased.

Some objects remain functional whilst others whose function becomes outdated in the light of technological innovation, serve as memory carriers, 'touchstones' tangibly conveying into the present, a past ingenuity and social order. Serving to reveal the state of the present placed in contrast/comparison to recollection (what is not now the case) and imaginatively creating a potentiality for time to come.

In conclusion

The car boot sale as a 'free' space remains a mirage, an illusion: A contrived utopian vision and model always constituted in terms of financial agreements and conditions, rules and regulations, manners and etiquette. Yet there is potential here for all these factors to be acknowledged, managed and refined as part of an evolving public consciousness directed towards a future horizon that is determined by the 'Will of the People'. 


Adam Burthom


Studies