At Amsterdam’s UNFAIR art fair Narges Mohammadi is proposing a radical transaction – to buy this artwork you can give your time instead of money.
The exact number of hours it took Narges and contributors to build this two-piece sculpture is meant to be shared together by people living in marginal city districts and Dutch landowners. People and organizations from both sides are now invited to apply for adoption of one of the parts!
The monument is made to be set in a public space, and its two parts are to be located at a distance, one donated to a neighbourhood and the other gained by the buyer. The work materialises a cup and space around it, to set awareness on gentrification, abstracted in a symbol of café chains that often announce the process of urban development in which a city neighbourhood develops rapidly over a short time, changing from low to high value, resulting with displacing local inhabitants by rising rents and living costs.
Narges Mohammadi invites for a concrete exchange: giving time to practical contribution. Why do we settle for a world that is valuing profit more than people? The work CONCRETE EXCHANGE questions who has the right to live and where. Creating a framework for interhuman connection it is emphasizing the social value of art, and the importance of building human relationships in an unfair world.
The work is followed by a web page: /www.concrete-exchange.com/ that contains details on how to approach the artist since the invitation is still open! Elena Apostolovski 18th July 2022
