The Future of Our Money

15 april – 10 september 2023

How does our monetary system work? Who influences it? Does our financial system work for everyone? Could we do it differently and if so, how? These questions lie at the core of the latest project by artist and cartographer Carlijn Kingma, in collaboration with financial economists Martijn Jeroen van der Linden and Thomas Bollen. From 15 April 2023 we will be considering the future of money in the Projects Gallery at Kunstmuseum Den Haag. In her meticulously detailed drawings Kingma has brilliantly managed to chart how money flows, and how it could flow, with both criticism and humour. Visitors will be able to wander through different landscapes that unravel the complexities of the financial world, and prompt us to think about the future.

The design of our monetary system has a major impact on the economy, the distribution of wealth and the way we live together in our society. And yet there are few people who truly understand how it works. In her drawing The Waterworks of Money Kingma manages to make the system accessible to a wide audience. Inspired by the saying ‘spending money like water’, she brings the world of big money to life, guiding the viewer through a landscape where money flows invisibly and hidden forces lurk, a voyage of discovery into the role of money in our society. We see large parts of society standing dry, while for a small group of people money laps at the skirting boards. The inequality grows and grows. Furthermore, the entire system is permanently propped up with public money. Without billions in government support, the system would have collapsed like a house of cards long ago. Our current system appears to have reached its use-by date….

Central banks around the world are currently working on new forms of digital money. Design choices made in the near future will have major implications for society. What can we expect? How can we make our monetary system fairer? Kingma will outline various future scenarios to get museum visitors and the financial world thinking. In three scenarios, the authors will explore solutions to problems like growing inequality, concentration of power and the unsustainable debt mountain.

About Carlijn Kingma, Thomas Bollen and Martijn Jeroen van der Linden
Artist Carlijn Kingma (b. 1991) is a cartographer of society. Her maps featuring architectural elements and structures analyse the systems of our society and outline new visions for the future. She has collaborated on this project with Martijn Jeroen van der Linden and Thomas Bollen. Van der Linden lectures in New Finance at the Hague University of Applied Science, and in 2022 was awarded a PhD for his thesis on ‘design criteria for a better monetary system’. Bollen is an investigative journalist with Follow the Money. A large dossier entitled ‘Unravelling our monetary system’ appears on the Follow the Money website. The international launch of the project will take place on 20 May at the Venice Biennale.

Activities, conference and publication
The exhibition at Kunstmuseum Den Haag will prompt visitors to think, and will also be a springboard for various activities for the financial world and for students. During the run of the exhibition, there will be lectures, debates and a week-long conference. Further details will be announced on kunstmuseum.nl.

The exhibition is a follow-up to an exhibition shown earlier this year at Rijksmuseum Twenthe. In Twenthe the exhibition focused on the past, while at Kunstmuseum Den Haag the focus will be on various future scenarios on which Kingma is currently working.