Centrefold / Village people

A hallowed English tradition is cheekily reinvented by modern art's Young Turks

Only a nutter would put all the up-and-coming hotshots and wannabees of the London art scene in a City square and ask them to construct their idea of a community knees-up. Marginally insane Joshua Compston, 24-year-old art entrepreneur, did, in his role as organiser of the Fete Worse Than Death (right). The event provides a chance for over 50 of, as Compston puts it, 'the arrived, the arriving, and the grotty obscure', in the London art, performance and film world to put their own bizarre spin on the traditional English village fete.

Forget chutney stalls run by old ladies with thick ankles. The Fete, in its second year, promises more of the happenings seen in '93 from art's bad boys like Damien Hirst and Angus Fairhurst. Their contribution was to dress up as clowns, faces painted, and allow punters to make their own splatter paintings, which, for a few pennies, the two would then sign. For a few pennies more their painted genitals came out too.

The Fete is an opportunity to buy the work of rising stars in the contemporary art world, without having to (a) venture into a stuffy gallery space and (b) do any pretentious pondering, and (c) most importantly, sell your Granny. Look out for Gavin Turk's signature T-shirts (there's only a 1000, they are potential collectors' items) and Matt Collishaw's snowstorms, both artists are mainstays of the late 1980s Goldsmiths phenomenon that produced the now infamous Damien Hirst.

Just as entertaining will be the wannabees. Compston was eager to provide in the Fete, 'a deliberately non-elitist platform. That means I'm putting respectable artists alongside complete nobodies in the art world.' The most famous of which will be Bruiser de Cadenet, semi-famous loafer brother of Amanda.

Expect the expected with an art world twist - be it a cake stall selling edible works of modern art, or a wood-wind quintet, playing five different compositions at once.

If all these high arty jinks don't turn you on, go for the beer tents (licensed all day), the 1921 magic roundabout, the candy floss and the steam engines. It's ideal for children, because, as Joshua Compston says, 'all the stall-holders are basically children too.'

The Fete Worse Than Death, 10am to 12pm Sat, Hoxton Square (off Old Street), N1 (071-613 5048) free

The first 10 readers to present this article on admission will receive a free Gavin Turk T-shirt

(Photograph omitted)