Halloween has come and gone, accompanied by the usual frenzy of tutorials about spooky make up and articles, features and photo galleries about this incredible costume or that celebrity's exclusive party. But, while dark supernatural powers and monsters and the fear of death have been exorcised last night, the horror of real life remains.
In between bloody wars and genocides that barely make the news and the relentless rise to power all over the world of an extreme right intent on replacing democracy with dictatorship (think Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil...), Storefront for Art and Architecture (97 Kenmare Street, New York) decided to postpone its Halloween celebrations and get political. Critical Halloween, the annual Halloween party and intellectual debate organised by the New York-based non profit organisation committed to the advancement of innovative positions in art, architecture and design, is well-known for its engaging and philosophical themes that throughout the years went from Luxury and I-Relevance to Corporate-AvantGarde and Banality.
For this year, though, Storefront for Art and Architecture has decided to move the date of its Halloween party to 6th November, mid-term election day. The event is organised in collaboration with the Movement Voter Project that supports issue-oriented organizations all over the States and works on cross-disciplinary campaigns and voter turnout. Rather than buying a ticket, party-goers can become a member of Storefront and, for each membership pledge that is made, an equal amount will be donated to the Movement Voter Project in support of issues such as economic fairness, racial justice, gender equality, immigration, LGBTQ advocacy, healthcare access, and environmental sustainability through electoral change.
This year's theme is - very aptly - "Real": while the organisation explains that Halloween got "really" critic as this year it fell one week before the 2018 US midterm elections, the theme obviously hints at the "real" Vs "fake" dichotomy, asking us if we should choose between our real life dimension or seek freedom and comfort in alternative and virtual realities.
According to Storefront for Art and Architecture (but it's hard to disagree...) "real lives are at risk worldwide, from Brazil to Bhutan" and the time has come to tackle several issues and finding solutions at individual, community, and legislative scales. Storefront also interprets this year's theme from the "real estate" perspective, highlighting how, as a society, the most important piece of real estate we can claim is the voting booth.
For this year's Critical Halloween celebration the annual Costume Competition will also turn into the Truly Democratic Costume and Campaign Slogan Competition, a democratic event aimed at empowering voters. Costumes and slogans will be judged by popular vote, with winners in the Realest Individual, Realest Duo/Group, and Realest Campaign Slogan categories.
The event is a way to prompt people to think and encourage us all to start discerning between real and fake, applying a critical eye to what we see, read and hear in real life and on social networks and opposing all sorts of disinformation.
The animated gif advertising the event shows indeed a few examples of real Vs fake news, including a pair of socks with the Nike swoosh removed. They refer to the NikeBoycott campaign (amplified by Twitter accounts believed to be linked to Russia's disinformation campaign...) against Colin Kaepernick, new face of Nike's Just Do It adverts and former American football quarterback who became known in 2016 for kneeling rather than standing while the United States national anthem was being played in protest against racial injustice, a gesture that infuriated Donald Trump.
It's time to get REAL, then, and in case you have doubts about costumes or slogans, well, you can get inspired by the annual Party Bibliography that this year is particularly rich and features books and essays about art, architecture and civic architecture, capitalism, politics, economics, technology, philosophy and gender studies.
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