The arts is coming to the Cerritos College campus in the form of Foundation for Art Resources Bazaar, an alternative art fair and collective.

FAR Bazaar is a non-commercial art fair that showcases art collectives, artist run spaces and local art schools who have had effect on the regional art scene. The foundation has a history of, taking abandoned buildings and turning them into art fair spaces dating back to the 1990s.

This years FAR Bazaar is special for two separate reasons. The first being that it is the 40th anniversary of FAR, which start back in 1977. The second reason being that this is the last event being held in the old Fine Arts building.

After the conclusion of FAR Bazaar the building will be demolished sometime during February 2017.

Art Director James Macdevitt said, “FAR is a very celebrated art foundation. It’s a non-profit advocacy group, it’s a nomadic institution that passes its leadership to board [members] every two or three years, so the foundation is always rejuvenated with new blood.”

This art collective gives a chance for different local, and non-local, art communities to come together in one place. The event happening at Cerritos College also allows the art students of the college to network with different collectives and schools, as well as the opportunity to help with the installation process.

The event will take place on Saturday, Jan. 28 and extend until Sunday, Jan. 29. Both days will begin at 10 a.m. and will end at 10 p.m, in the old Fine Arts Building.

“[The event] I am expecting is probably going to get somewhere in the magnitude of a couple thousand visitors, over the course of the two days, it will be very busy,” Macdevitt said, “There is over 300 artist participating in the exhibition alone,”

Among the artists participating in the event are Ben Jackel and Valerie Wilcox who are part of Durden and Ray, an art collective based in LA.

The collective is made up of 24 artist all of whom are working together to create an out of the box exhibit.

Wilcox said, “It’s a big collaboration. We are working over each other’s marks, erasing marks- you’re not going to really see individual artist by themselves.”

Jackel said, “Since [the space] is going to be demolished, we didn’t want to just have a regular art show. A lot of people have done different things here and I think through the week we can keep responding to each [other’s art].”

He continued to describe that the creation of this particular exhibit as, “just a fun different thing to do.”

The event itself will feature many different types of exhibits, installations, demonstrations and lectures.

This will be included film screenings, live music installations, performance art and interactive art installations.

Simultaneously the opening of the Cerritos College Art in Residence program, featuring Stephanie Deumer, will open. It will feature Deumer’s 3D woodworking installation named, ‘Features of the Same face’.

The installation is inspired by an old doll house her mother had while Deumer was a child and can be seen on display in the new Fine Arts Building’s project space in the art gallery.

The art gallery will also display two other exhibits featuring the work of about 50 former FAR board members.

There will also be a series of panels in the new art history lecture hall.

The first will discuss the history of different art collectives in Southern California. The speakers will include Carol Cheh and Ronnie Kim who are both experts in the field. The second will be on the aging modernist architecture.

According to Macdevitt, “[The old fine arts building] is sort of seminal work of mid-century architecture and is very much connected to the style arch that was built post war.”

Macdevitt hopes to have this event be more than just an event for the art world but for the community of Southern California.

“I hoping for the community to come out,” he said, “I want the people in the general vicinity that would not generally go to an art opening [to come]. This event is for them.”

He goes on to describe the event as something that is so odd and wonderful, “you don’t need to have a knowledge of the arts to appreciate what you are going to see.”