Carla Cruz

Antonio and Carla’s project Finding Money, London & Paris Diary arouses questions and problems related to finding money on the streets. Continuing a project they started in 2012, they wish to unpack social, political and postural repercussions of this everyday occurrence with experts from various fields.

In this talk, three experts in Archeology, Coins and Medals and Art History will expand on the history of coinage through the compositions, forms of metal-based money and also the alchemic and social transformation of everyday life in eighteenth century in Britain.

Murray Andrews, ‘from mint to mud: writing the biographies of medieval coins’, will explore the phenomenon of ancient coin-losing and finding. Taking a biographical approach to medieval coins from mint to modern recovery, Andrews will consider what these processes might tell us about the people using and losing coins in the Middle Ages. Ben Alsop, ‘Money doesn’t talk it screams…’ will give an overview of the history of coinage looking at its changing form and composition as well as the ability for circulating currency to spread both official and unofficial messages. John Chu’s presentation ‘Joshua Reynolds and Street Art: Painting Beggars in Eighteenth-Century London‘, will expand on the career of Sir Joshua Reynolds – the most famous painter in late eighteenth-century London – taking a close look at the quasi-alchemic gesture of transforming the lowly and insignificant into precious treasure.

Join us in this discussion with Gasworks/OSE Artists in Residence Antonio Contador and Carla Cruz, with: Ben Alsop (Curator, Dep. of Coins and Medals – British Museum), Murray Andrews (Researcher at the Archaeology Dep. – UCL), John Chu (Art Historian – The Courtauld Institute of Art / Tate Britain).

Open School East, 28 May 2015, 19:00-21:00.

The Rose Lipman Building
43 De Beauvoir Rd
London N1 5SQ