Money is the means used to exchange goods. It normally takes the form of coins and notes emitted by the government of each country. But money can also be abstract and exist in a bank account. When in its physical form, we see the values drawn on a paper: and this money is used in the acquisition of goods, the purchase of services, of labour and other financial transactions.
It is often said that money makes the world go round. At LU.CA, with the Money Series, we sought to explore this topic in different forms, respecting its importance, but without letting ourselves become ensnared by the idea of a “vile metal”, as reflected in George Orwell’s book “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”.
We all know that there are things that do not have a price. What is the worth of a smile, a surprise, a friend, the sun, a moon-lit night or the bottom of the ocean? There are things that no money can buy because they «have no value»: and with this we mean that they have so much value that there is no amount of money that can buy them.
Of course, our perspective of value can also change according to context. In the city described by Marco Polo, Kublai Kai, in the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, all is made out of gold. So surprising in the beginning, and, by the end, so useless. In that city, a small part of the cement of contemporary cities could have the value we attribute to gold. Or still, like the myth of Midas, whose adventures served to shed light on human greed because, at his request, he was given the gift of turning everything he touched into gold: bread, a glass of wine, Phoebe – his daughter – and even the sand of the Pactolus river banks.
So that we do not forget to appreciate the sand on the beach and the invisible glow of the small things, trying to rethink our conception about value and money as a means and not an end, striving to be able to bestow greater relevance to what surrounds us and that does not come by way of notes, coins, or bitcoins, for the month of November we idealized a series of proposals in the main room, the mezzanine and online, that will surely be enriching.
