Makin’ Up Money

Review by Stefan Ransom

Maiko and Chris began the session with a game that they had designed to get everyone acclimated to a basic system that with participation would describe a model of currency flow and trade.  Sparing the description of rules, everyone seemed to enjoy the activity and warm up to the idea of micro/macro currency movement.

The session then moved into a panel discussion with local documentary filmmaker Alan Rosenblith, who recently completed a documentary titled

Which can be found at themoneyfix.org and is free to watch.   Alan discussed the idea of currency generally being perceived in an economic sense as dollars rather than a more expansive and perhaps appropriate notion of currency as a relative medium of value and exchange.  Two founding members of the River Hours, Gorge Local Community Currency Cooperative, were also part of the panel.  

They came as representatives of a movement towards supplementing “River Hours” (a printed local currency) within a small regional economy.  In the discourse, they explained the nature of that particular alternative currency and the rigors that have ensued in that undertaking. 

For better or worse, that became the focus of question and answer driven largely by the curiosity of the audience; all of which became involved in a large conversation centered around the merits and drawbacks of alternative currency structures.  One of the more poignant discussion points (for me) was the idea that when an individual, family, or society has less money it might mean that they are less willing to spend their monetary currency on anything more than necessity.  That poses an interesting question for art and art practitioners, be it more traditional art or more socially engaged art.  In the case of social art, by whatever appropriate name, Nils Norman in the final discussion panel said something about having more work opportunity during times of financial recession than otherwise.

More information about River Hours:

http://www.riverhours.org/