- 5 hand painted posters (150cm x 100cm) - A5 zine - Voting booth - Polling cards
The central question that the project asks is, “Which currency is more valuable – Time or Money?” From there it poses a series of provocations that cover connecting themes, including understandings of wealth, labour, basic income and if free time should be a human right. The aim of the project is to start conversations about how we value our time and question what impact money has on it.
The project was on display in the Long Gallery in Newcastle university’s Fine Art Department as part of the MFA degree show from 24th August to 7th September, 2019.
The exhibition format includes five posters with hand painted questions or statements, a zine which contains smaller versions of the posters and further prompts and statements.
You can download a PDF version of the zine here, or email if you would like a printed copy.
I was present in the gallery space during opening hours ‘working’ on the paintings and recording the number of hours spend doing this. The value of my labour, and of the paintings, will be calculated using the current minimum wage in the UK (£8.21 for over 25s) and the Real Living Wage (£9.00), which is the amount calculated by the Living Wage Foundation that employees need to earn in order to cover the costs of living in the UK.
The exhibition also included a voting booth with polling cards which invite visitors to vote on which currency is more valuable and state why they made their choice.
I posted images of my progress on the paintings, elements of conversations that I had in the gallery and results from the vote on my twitter account. Feel free to get in touch to tell me what you think and join the conversation.
A striped back version of the project was shown at Tate Exchange in January 2020, as part of Sale, a workshop in collaboration with Central Saint Martins
