Firewood Currency
Video installation, 4:02 min, 2014
Taking into consideration the need for an interest-free and zero-inflation system of currency, which promotes humane development instead of financial power obsessed with exponential growth, last year a group of people, proposing to create an alternative to the existing currency, started to form in Riga. The idea is not radically new, it has existed in diverse forms in many countries and under various systems for some time now in Switzerland, Germany, Bolivia, Iceland etc. In each place the alternative currency is adapted to local interests and particularities. In this case wood has been chosen as the point of reference a renewable energy resource, a versatile, functional material, as well as, during its life-cycle, the basis of the ecological system. Wooden currency provides an opportunity to test the hypothesis of demurrage or a tale moneywhich, when expressed as the carrying cost of money, will increase its circulation while limiting excessive reserves. Time will tell if this idea is sustainable in Latvia, or just another utopia.
Artist's Bio:
I mainly work with photography. My primary focus is documenting and paraphrasing events and interpreting documentary narratives through installations. Being involved in, or affected by, a situation, whether comfortable or vulnerable, political or social, I take photographs as a response to these situations. I am interested in society and the interaction between the social and the private spheres and how these intersect within an individual. This ties in with my interest in psychology, which I have previously studied.