As a collaborative, artistic investigation this project produced a tangible, tactile and tradable currency incorporating local clay, which was then used to trial actual exchanges as well as spark conversation.

The project featured an exhibition and ideas lab at Lot19 over three weekends from 7 May coinciding with a local economy experiment where the coin could be purchased and used in select businesses in Castlemaine. Both the exhibition and experiment were designed to engage the community around key questions, such as: what is money? why a local currency? how can it create economic and social wealth? what can it tell us about ourselves?

Working in conjunction with the Castlemaine Institute, the project takes its lead from the “Mount Alexander in 2040: the Warrarrack economy” written by the Institute for the Wararack Initiatives, the Mount Alexander community’s climate response. Wararack is Dja Dja Wurrung for Silver Wattle and a symbol for diversity and the “glue” that binds us together. The plant is used to make impressions upon the clay currency, and is a potent reminder of the true source of our wealth – Djaara Country.

We acknowledge that we live and work on unceded country. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners, the Jaara people of the Dja Dja Wurrung, and celebrate their unbroken connection to the land since colonisation. Through this project we seek to work in respectful partnership with Jaara people and be in service to this country and all life residing here.