Barbara priolo
class of 2020
about
I'm a multidisciplinary artist, writer and social animator with a background in legal practice and fine arts studies. I work for a cultural organization called “Fuori Posto”, whose principal aim is to organize and promote cultural and artistic events in the South of Italy. In San Francisco I’m attending the MA in Visual & Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts. In my artistic practice I alternate ink drawings with mix-media installations of ready-made and found objects. I’m particularly interested in the relationship between humans and places and in the potentiality of art as a social change stimulator.
Thesis
Co-currencies: De-capitalizing Money to Recapitalize Community
Community currencies (co-currencies) are parallel monetary systems often created by the NGO sector to support the local economy of oppressed and unrepresented communities. The thesis juxtaposes an artwork, Frances Negrón Munater’s 2019 Pesos Y Puerto Rico, with I Buoni di Riace, a paper currency instituted in 2016 by then Riace mayor Domenico Lucano to support migrants in the city. In doing so, this thesis considers the intersections of contemporary art practice, marginalized communities, and the economy. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s theory of capital and Hito Steyerl’s work on art financialization, the thesis argues that those alternative currencies have managed to manipulate the money visually and materially as a strategy to re-amplify community and finally humanize the capital.
