Banana Link is an NGO that has been actively organising and campaigning for over two decades to improve the situation of banana farmers globally.
Banana Link has also been actively involved in the Exchange Values project since 1996 through Alistair Smith and Renwick Rose of WINFA.
If you are interested in presenting Exchange Values and making its social sculpture processes available, please contact Shelley Sacks and the global Social Sculpture Lab for full details and to discuss the possibilities.
Shelley Sacks Tel: UK +44 7812072327 E-mail: ssacks@brookes.ac.uk and info@socialsculpturelab.com
The fee for Exchange Values, and costs, vary depending on the organisation, venue, group and country. We can discuss this when you make contact.
The aim is to use Exchange Values and not let the fee and costs hinder this.
All logistical costs have to be covered.
The fee is used to enable events and forums that take place in the Exchange Values arena and for other work connected to the global Social Sculpture Lab.
Exchange Values has received many forms of sponsorship. Often local venues apply to organisations, including the arts councils, foundations and companies, and growers organisations.
Work with the ‘invisible materials‘
Through the integration of the aesthetic and the political, an imaginative space is created in which we can engage with the re-shaping and transforming of our lives and our society, and explore ways to develop a more humane, participatory and ecologically viable society.
This expanded workspace where we work with “the invisible materials” available to us all – “speech, discussion, thought” [Beuys], “values, attitudes, questions and habits of thinking” [Sacks] – where the personal and social imagination moves and weaves, is a creative workspace accessible to all.
Social Sculpture Arenas and the ‘connective practice’ processes enables an experience of this creative agency as an individual and a collective.
The Social Sculpture Research Unit at Oxford Brookes University promotes interdisciplinary creativity and connective aesthetics – the relationship between the aesthetic and the ecological, between transformative social process and an ecologically viable future – with a special focus on the development of Joseph Beuys’ ‘social sculpture’ proposals, Schiller’s ‘aesthetic education of the human being’ and on the imaginative capacities needed to work as agents of personal, social and system change.
Social Sculpture refers to an understanding of art as an interdisciplinary and participatory process in which thought, speech and discussion are core materials available to everyone, and all human beings are recognised as artists able to shape a democratic, sustainable social order.
Social sculpture is concerned with creative strategies and new methodologies of engagement. It focuses on our ‘ability-to-respond’ and connect more deeply with the world in which we live. It explores the relationship between:
Joseph Beuys’ statement that Art=Capital could be restated as Creativity = Capital or Imagination = Capital. It refers to the potential that human beings have to see beyond self-centredness, nationalism and egocentric globalisation and to reshape a society that recognises the interconnectedness of all forms of being.
Social sculpture is about developing a social model in which participatory democracy is an essential aspect of the process towards sustainable, eco-centric futures.
The Social Sculpture Research Unit (SSRU), coordinated by Shelley Sacks, is based within the School of Arts at Oxford Brookes University. The Unit facilitates the practice of, and reflection on social sculpture and related forms of eco-art and art and social process, and has developed a unique research area of international interest.
Activities of the Social Sculpture Research Unit include:
If you are interested in the SSRUs work please see our website:
Social Sculpture Research Unit, School of Arts, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, Oxford, OX3 OBP, UK.
Tel: UK (0)1865 484961
E-mail: Shelley Sacks ssacks@brookes.ac.uk
> Racial capitalism and environmental racism
> The Future of Work, The Future of the Human Being
> Regenerative thinking, response-abilty and connective practice
> Agroecology and the role of the consumer as the contract giver
Venues under discussion. To be confirmed.
See Use of the Project section, if you are interested in hosting Exchange Values on the table and working with any of the above themes.
……………..
Six months of ‘Connective Practice’ and Public Forum processes at the EXCHANGE VALUES ‘table’. Led by Shelley Sacks. As part of the exhibition ‘A Global Table’. Curated by Abigail Winograd. 18 planned fora for organisations, groups and individuals, plus regular opportunities for spontaneous individual and small group participation.
Final events in 2018
10 Feb 2018 THE FUTURE OF WORK / THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN BEING’.
A day long social sculpture process
12 Feb 2018 BEYOND MONOCULTURES
A day long Social Sculpture process focusing with Renwick Rose [Chair of WINFA and World Banana Forum in Geneva], Alistair Smith [Banana Link], Trade Union and Farmers Representatives, and Research and Development Representatives of EU Fruit Distribution Companies. Co-hosted with Banana Link and World Banana Forum. Participation by invitation only. READ the Banana Link Bulletin. Includes details about ‘Beyond Monocultures’ event.
One of many events with school pupils. Exploring everyday needs, wants, and at what costs, to whom.
Exchange Values on the table can be used in different contexts within and outside the art-world to host and enable participatory, reflective assemblies.
Physical elements, participatory processes and diverse contexts
As a social sculpture ‘instrument of consciousness’ it has components that are both physical-material experiential elements and participatory processes. It is designed for use in a wide range of social, political, educational, art and other cultural contexts. It has also been used as a central element in seminars, conferences and other research contexts.
A Social Workplace
Whilst Exchange Values is an arena for engaging individual receivers and group members at its listening stations around the walls where they encounter the voice and spirit of the invisible person who grew a particular banana, it is also a social workplace.
Through its carefully designed ‘forum processes’ at the table it:
a. enables active, multi-dimensional and unique ways of engaging with significant themes, issues, and realities
b. makes tangible and strengthens the connection between individual insight and group vision; between inner process and outer actions
c. uncovers the potential for new forms of connective action and understanding regarding global economic-political-social realities.
A Structured Process and Handbook
Since 2007 there has been a structured process for working at the table, which educators, coaches, museum staff, organisations, projects, and community members can be trained to facilitate. A process ‘handbook’ [first developed for Zurich, 2011] and then updated for the Netherlands [2017-18] is being formalised for wider use.
Anyone can be trained to facilitate the process.
Scale of the forums
Since 1996 over one hundred forum processes have taken place. Some forum processes are small with between 7 and 15 participants. Many are between 20 and 30 participants. In South Africa some of the processes involved up to 80 participants.
Who has used it
Exchange Values has been used by NGOs/Non-Profit organisations, International Conferences, Museums, Art Galleries, Universities as part of research enquiries, Education for Fairtrade and Agroecology programmes, and as part of philosophical, ethical and spiritual explorations about the relationship between freedom and responsibility.
Themes have included…
freedom and responsibility / ‘free trade’ / globalisation and gender / contemporary colonialism / empathy and action / colonialism and slavery / the global economy and the nature of work / unconditional basic income / de-growth economics / global trade agreements / new economics and ‘working for each other’ / environmental and social justice / ‘beyond unfair trade’ and ‘fairtrade’ / alienation of producers and consumers / the consumer as the ‘contract giver’ and the role of boycotts / sustainable agriculture / social sculpture and connective practices / the relationship of the individual and the collective / connecting inner and outer work / sensuous knowing / invisible lives and unheard voices / how we live in the world / needs, wants and strivings / creative agency and the role of consumers in developing new narratives / the field of transformation / understanding what Beuys meant by ‘every human being is an artist’ / direct democracy, new modes of thinking and eco-social economics / the role of imagination in transformation.
Between the structured forum processes
With the 5-metre table as part of the installation, all visitors that come into the arena become participants. By sitting at the table, they realise they are ‘participants’ in the global economy and not simply ‘consumers’ of an exhibition-installation.
Space and infrastructure required
Although it is clear that it works very well in diverse contexts, it does need a fairly big space with walls on which the 20 sheets of skin and their metal frames can be attached. Such venues are usually found in museums and university galleries. However, this is not a necessity. On several occasions we have erected temporary walls especially for the installation in deconsecrated churches, and even in a conference venue for a one week period. See SPACE in Logistics
Other support
It is great for participants to be able to touch the skins. And there are headphones at each listening station. So it requires the kind of invigilation that one finds in museums and galleries, including some daily switching on and off process.
Rates
The rates for use vary depending on the organisation, venue, group and country. We can discuss this when you make contact. The aim is to use Exchange Values and not let rates hinder this.
All logistical costs have to be covered. Where there is sufficient external funding then farmers and their organisations are also able to contribute to the fora.
Exchange Values has received many forms of sponsorship. Often local venues apply to organisations, including the Arts Council of England, the NGO ‘Banana Link’, University Research groups, Banana Distribution Companies, and grower organisations.
Contact
If you are interested in presenting Exchange Values and making its social sculpture process available, please contact Shelley Sacks for full details and to discuss ideas and viability.
Shelley Sacks Tel: UK +44 (0) 7812072327 E-mail: ssacks@brookes.ac.uk
COMPONENTS OF THE PROJECT
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.
SPACE REQUIRED
A square space is best.
It works well in a square space of 9 x 9 meters, but this can vary, from between 12 meters square to 20 meters square. Between 12 meters square and 15 meters square is best.
Alternatively, it can be a rectangle. The two shorter sides need to be minimum 9 meters and the longer ones up to 11 meters long.
Exchange Values must have 4 walls, creating a semi-enclosed space. So sometimes a temporary wall needs to be built.
Minimum height of walls: approx 3 metres.
Other points about the space
A semi-enclosed space is best. The 4-walled space needs to have as few entrances and exits as possible. However, with the round table, and the loose, unnumbered skins in the recess in the table, if there is more than one entrance/exit, this is now less critical.
The walls need to be clear. That means – no heaters, handrails, architectural ‘furniture’, minimal visual information, preferably not wallpaper. White is best. Grey or concrete also works.
Floor material is not an issue. But it should be plain, neutral. Not brightly coloured or patterned.
5 power-points in or near space, to plug in 5 small transformers [220 volts].
TRANSPORTATION
Transportation from UK or mainland Europe [presently in Germany] and back to UK to mainland Europe, needs to be covered by the venue.
There are 5 wooden crates, the large 5 meter table and 8 benches. The table splits into two halves. Each half is 5 m x 2.5 m and about 20 cms deep. The ‘legs’ are separate. The table and crates fit in a large van that can be driven with a motor-car licence.
Two people are needed to lift the crates.
One crate contains the 20 sheets of skins. This crate cannot be in high temperatures [e.g lying at the docks in a hot country], as the skins are backed with pitch and beeswax, and will melt.
One crate contains the 10000 loose skins.
All the skins were fumigated at the last venue, but might need to be checked and fumigated again.
If transported to countries outside the EU, permits for the skins will probably need to be obtained. This has been done before.
CRATES – DIMENSIONS, WEIGHT AND CONTENTS
Crate 1 and 2
2 x 2 metre x 20cms x 25 cms
Approx weight: each long crate 35 kg
Contents: 10 folding metal frames in each crate
Crate 3
1 x 180cms x 60cmc x 50cms
Approx weight: 20 kgs
Contents: black plastic bags filled with dried and cured banana skins
(they have been round the world several times..
with no problems; no different to transporting basketwork)
Crate 4
1 x 60 cms x 80 cms x 50 cms
Approx weight: 35 kgs
Contents: 20 audio cd players, wiring, electrical equipment, 20 metal boxes, metal bolts
Crate 5
1 x flat crate containing 20 stitched ‘pictures’ made of dried banana skin covered in wax.
(These pictures or ‘sheets of skin’ must not be in places that are too hot, because the wax will melt. They are wrapped in plastic and tissue paper in the crate. They are very delicate)
NOW FESTIVAL, BONNINGTON GALLERY, NOTTINGHAM, ENGLAND 10/1996 to 12/1996
UK PRESIDENCY PROJECT, BRIXTON GALLERY, LONDON, in collaboration with WINFA [Windward Islands Farmers Association].05/1998
THE ARENA, OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY for launch of Social Sculpture Research Unit, Oxford, England. 11/1998 to 02/1999
Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, WARWICK UNIVERSITY, ENGLAND. 07/1999 as part of conference ‘Women and the Millennium: Gender, Culture and Globalisation’. 1999
At three venues in the East of England [Peterborough, Norwich, Ipswich], including the PETERBOROUGH CITY ART GALLERY, linked to
the NGO Banana Link and funded by the Arts Council of England. 02/2000 to 07/2000
SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL GALLERY, CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA – with support from the British Council, 04/2001 to 08/2001
JOHANNESBURG ART GALLERY, SOUTH AFRICA – to coincide with the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa. 08/2002 to 12/2002
INTERNATIONAL PROJECT SPACE – BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND, in collaboration with cultural geographers from the University of Birmingham; Creative Partnerships, Banana Link and WINFA [Windward Islands Farmers Association]. 04/2004 to 07/2004
As part of the SOCIAL SCULPTURE TODAY exhibition [with Wochenklausur, George Steinmann, James Reed, Nicholas Stronczyk] for the Ursache Zukunft conference and exhibition, DORNACH, SWITZERLAND [6 months during 2007]
VOEGELE KULTURZENTRUM, ZURICH as part ‘Going Bananas’, international exhibition on the history of the global banana trade. 04-2011 to 08/2011
FRANS HALLS MUSEUM – DE HALLEN, HAARLEM, HOLLAND 27 Sept 2017 to 18 March 2018
As part of the exhibition ‘The Global Table’ curated by Abigail Winograd, Fellow in Transhistorical Curating with the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Holland.
If you would like to use and present Exchange Values on the table, please contact Shelley Sacks.
E-mail: Shelley Sacks ssacks@brookes.ac.uk
Exchange Values on the table as a social sculpture ‘instrument of consciousness’ is designed for use in a wide range of social, political, educational, art and other cultural contexts.
The physical space required is a museum type venue, with full invigilation.
This new version includes a social sculpture ‘connective practice’ process, especially designed for the project.
Such processes take place with organisations, schools and other educational institutions, consumer groups, farmers and Fair Trade groups, NGOs and organisations dealing with trade issues. These processes are guided by Shelley Sacks, museum educators and other volunteers trained to use the Exchange Values ‘instrument of consciousness’.
The rates for use vary depending on the organisation, venue, group and country. We can discuss this when you make contact.
If you are interested in presenting Exchange Values and making its social sculpture process available, please contact Shelley Sacks for full details and to discuss the viabilty.
Shelley Sacks Tel: UK (0)1865 484961 E-mail: ssacks@brookes.ac.uk
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.
A square space is best.
It works well in a square space of 9 x 9 meters, but this can vary, from between 12 meters square to 20 meters square. Between 12 meters square and 15 meters square is best.
Alternatively, it can be a rectangle. The two shorter sides need to be minimum 9 meters and the longer ones up to 11 meters long.
Exchange Values must have 4 walls, creating a semi-enclosed space. So sometimes a temporary wall needs to be built.
Minimum height of walls: approx 3 metres.
Other points about the space
A semi-enclosed space is best. The 4-walled space needs to have as few entrances and exits as possible. However, with the round table, and the loose, unnumbered skins in the recess in the table, if there is more than one entrance/exit, this is now less critical.
The walls need to be clear. That means – no heaters, handrails, architectural ‘furniture’, minimal visual information, preferably not wallpaper. White is best. Grey or concrete also works.
Floor material is not an issue. But it should be plain, neutral. Not brightly coloured or patterned.
5 power-points in or near space, to plug in 5 small transformers [220 volts].
© 2022 All texts, images and processes are copyright to Shelley Sacks
Please contact Shelley Sacks for use of any site content or images. Contact: ssacks@brookes.ac.uk
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