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Other Issues

Leiden Siege paper coins, 1574

 

Surinam playing cards currency, 1760-1827.

 

Other Issues is a  multiform project that investigates and documents historical issues of heterogeneous forms of currency during periods of scarcity. Countless as those cases of ‘necessity money’ are through history and around the world, I focused on three cases of special relevance for me, as a Spanish artist living in the Netherlands:

 

 

1)  The Leiden Siege (1574) by the Spanish Catholic army during the 80 Years War. The newly protestant city issued coins using the pages of catholic books as base material. Those printed pages are still visible in the coins.

 

 

2)   Surinam, 1760 – 1827, when the new Dutch settlement was starving due to natural disasters and social instability. After running out of metals the government issued money using existing playing cards.

 

 

3)   The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), when more than 7000 forms of money were issued by regional governments, big city halls, smaller municipalities, factories, trade unions, associations, cooperatives, small businesses, and even individuals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I see these historical cases as the formal antecessors of what today we understand as 'complementary currencies’. In the lecture-performances, photo-installations and essays related to this project, I use this three cases to discuss the role of money and its connection to:

 

a) Sovereignty and the creation of identity (Leiden).

 

b) The materialization / formalization of the ideological pillars of capitalism (Surinam).

 

c) Money as an institution that people can give form to in order to regain sovereignty, local economy and human contact (Spain).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spanish 7000 forms of necessity money, 1937-1939.

 

OTHER ISSUES takes different forms depending on the context:

The Autonomy  Project: FRAMEWORKS.

Van Abbe Museum / Onomatopee.

Eindhoven.

 

 

Contrubutions: Clare Butcher, John Byrne, Charles Esche, Michelle Franke, Marijke Goeting, Sean Harvey, Brian Holmes, Joanne McClellan, Emilio Moreno, Joana Ozorio de Almeida Meroz, Kerstin Niemann, Hannah Pierce, Sarah Pierce, Jennifer Smailes, Paul Sullivan, Steven ten Thije.

 

Exhibition: Doris Denekamp, Emilio Moreno, Hannah Pierce.

 

Curated by Clare Butcher.

 

The Grand Domestic Revolution.

CASCO Office for Art, Design and Theory. Utrecht.

 

 

With: Agency, Ask! (Actie Schone Kunsten) with Andreas Siekmann, Sepake Angiama & Sam Causer, Pauline Boudry /Renate Lorenz, Doris Denekamp & Arend Groosman, Domestic Workers Netherlands (part of FNV Bondgenoten) with Matthijs de Bruijne, Paul Elliman with Na Kim, Hans van Lunteren and Rob van de Steen, Casco-HKU Creative Lab ‘Extended Family’, Andrea Francke, ‘Our Autonomous Life’ with Nazima Kadir, Maria Pask and an evolving cooperative cast, Shiu Jin, Mary Kelly, kleines postfordistisches Drama, Germaine Koh, Graziela Kunsch, Wietske Maas, Gordon Matta-Clark, Travis Meinolf, Emilio Moreno, Read-in, Martha Rosler, Helke Sander, Kateřina Šedá, Kyohei Sakaguchi, Patricia Sousa, Xu Tan, Valerie Tevere & Angel Nevarez, Mirjam Thomann, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Jort van der Laan, Agnès Varda, Werker Magazine, Vincent Wittenberg and Haegue Yang.

 

 

Exhibition design by Ruth Buchanan and Andreas Müller. Exhibition map and signage is developed by Åbäke.

 

 

Curated by Binna Choi and Maiko Tanaka

 

 

 

A Bewitched System.

Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo,

Móstoles, Madrid.

 

 

With: Aurora Fernández Polanco, Dora García, Fernando García Dory, Avery Gordon, Joachim Koester, Kobe Matthys, Marie-José Mondzain, Maurizio Lazzarato, Jalal Toufic, Tamar Guimarâes, Eulalia Valldosera, Fran Meana and Emilio Moreno.

 

Curated by Pablo Martínez and Vincent Meessen

 

 

 

SCAPEGOAT:

ARCHITECTURE / LANDSCAPE / POLITICAL ECONOMY

Issue #04 Currency

Winter/Spring 2013

Toronto.

 

Read the essay:

‘Other Issues: Currency delimiting sovereignty’.

 

 

 

Emilio Moreno: ABRIDGED

South African National Gallery,

Cape Town.

 

Curated by Clare Butcher

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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