Photo by: Megan Westervelt
In our capitalist society, it is hard to imagine how one would acquire things without money. Every item in a store has a price tag on it, a monetary value attached.
But what is the item worth to the buyer? Would the buyer be willing to pay more? Barter for it? This is exactly what the Open Media Study studio art class set out to explore with its project The Exchange.
The project consists of three exchanges. The first was a bake exchange, the second was an exchange of services and both occurred in front of Sturm Hall. The final exchange is to be determined and will occur sometime before the end of school.
For the first event, the class offered baked goods to students walking by in exchange for anything besides money.
The idea for The Exchange arose out of the “One Red Paper Clip” project by Kyle MacDonald, a Canadian blogger, who, based on the game Bigger and Better, traded a paper clip for bigger or better things and ended up with a property.
“We are challenging the process of what something is worth,” said Faith Williams, a sophomore and studio art major in the class. The first exchange was based on an item for item system, whatever the audience thought a baked good was worth they could give in exchange for one. The artists received a lot of pencils and one participant even performed an original poem.
For the second exchange, each artist set up a booth and offered services for a specific or sometimes a negotiable price. Lisa Martin and Adrienne Day offered manicure services. In exchange for painting nails, each buyer was asked to add to one of two small squares of plastic with paint.
“It’s about questioning beauty,” said Martin. “Immediately after we have manicured their nails they are asked to smother them with paint.”
The Exchange aims to explore interaction with the audience as opposed to art for an audience said Williams who hosted a massage booth. Back, neck, hand or shoulder massages were given for whatever the audience member was willing to give and thought was worth the amount of minutes they would receive. At the end of the day, Williams had a range of items from an apple, to a chewy bar, an iced soy chai and mechanical pencil lead refills.
Matthew Contos, a senior studio art major, was the only artist utilizing money and offered to pay people up to $10 an hour to be his friend. However he found it very difficult to entice audience members to participate.
“No one has time for friends,” said Contos.
Contos also offered to carry people’s bags into Sturm and open doors for them but few people walking into Sturm had positive responses.
A recipe exchange was hosted by Courtney Jeffery. Audience members could post one of their recipes in exchange for a homemade cookie or one of Jeffery’s recipes. Her part of the exchange arose out of her love for cooking. Jeffery enjoyed experiencing the social experiment.
Colleen Brennan’s part of The Exchange was art therapy. She exchanged her listening skills for the audience’s time and openness. While sitting at Brennan’s booth one could draw with markers and colored pencils while talking about their day.
“It’s shocking how many people never get asked how their day was,” said Brennan.
