I Am My Own Money

I Am My Own Money is a conference on the relationship between money, time, and labor explored by artists Julieta Aranda and Anton Vidokle in their Time/Bank (2009–ongoing) installation for dOCUMENTA (13). The conference looks at barter economies throughout history and recent models of non-monetary systems of exchange, such as “Ithaca Hours,” a local currency introduced in 1991 by Paul Glover in Ithaca, New York.

The ongoing project of Aranda and Vidokle establishes a time bank for the art community based on the exchange of labor between a network of participants. The currency is “hour-dollar” credits to the value of the time that each participant spends working for another. The artists present the project in a garden house in the Karlsaue park, Kassel. One part of the display is an archive of past alternative currency systems; the other, a presentation on the current state of various Time/Bank offices that the artists have established in places like New York, Frankfurt/Main, Sydney, and The Hague. The installation also includes Notes for a Film about Time Bank, a film that deals with historical attempts to implement alternative economies.

On Sunday, June 10, from 12 to 5 pm at the Time/Bank installation, Paul Glover gives a workshop on starting up local currencies and grassroots economic development under the title “Time/Bank: Give Yourself Credit.”

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