Components of Exchange Values on the table

a. 20 sheets of skin, suspended on metal frames on the walls. 19 CD players with headphones are in each of the numbered metal boxes beneath each skin. [One skin has no recording. I did not find the farmer].

b. 5-meter round table
, with recess to contain 10000 loose banana skins

c. 8 curved benches fit round the table. 24 people can sit, closely, but comfortably, at the table. [With children/young people up to 30. With a second row of people –one can have a ‘conference’ style exchange of approx. 100 people. See photos from 2007].

d. A ‘connective practice’/social sculpture process is designed for use at the table [See details below], and accompanying printed handbook. The installation can be experienced casually by individuals and by groups. Museum visitors do not have engage in the structured process.

Note: There should be no visual or other secondary information about the growers available, particularly in or near the installation space. Such ‘documentary’ material takes people out of the experience into a different headspace. The experience derives partly from the absence of the growers, apart from through their ‘number’, their ‘skin’ and their voices.

Other material including: contextualising information by curator/s e.g. about ‘free trade’ /slavery / colonialism; extracts from ‘the story of the project’; notes about ‘social sculpture’ [its history, the contemporary field of social sculpture and ‘connective practice’]; explanations about ways of participating in the process; and the invitation to participate in a structured, sign-up process, should be outside the space.


 
 
 
 
 

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If quoting please include URL and "Exchange Values on the Table, formerly known as 'Exchange Values: Images of Invisible Lives' is a social sculpture developed by Shelley Sacks in collaboration with banana producers in the Windward Islands. [1996 ongoing] "