Banknotes for an Extinction Future

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Argentine Banknote

The Argentine banknote, titled Valores de Cambio (Exchange Values, 2021), gives both its name and its origin to this exhibition. This work was awarded the First Acquisition Prize at the 4th Atuel Art Biennial in the Drawing category (2021).

The piece proposes a reflection on the notions of economic, symbolic, and vital value, based on the image of a banknote from the Argentine Republic. By taking money as an emblem of what a society decides to measure, finance, and prioritize, the work questions the place occupied by both human and non-human life within those hierarchies.

This Argentine banknote served as the creative spark and conceptual core of the exhibition. From this starting point, banknotes from different regions of the world are intervened with animal and plant species that emerge as protagonists of an ongoing extinction, expanding the reflection toward a global-scale issue.

In its composition, graphic elements from various Argentine currency issues over time converge with the representation of emblematic species affected by human action. Among them are the yaguareté (critically endangered), the huemul, the ruddy-headed goose (cauquén colorado), and the yellow cardinal. It also incorporates the issue of beavers in Tierra del Fuego—an introduced species since 1946 that has caused a severe impact on the island's native forests. The work arises in relation to the historical precariousness of the budget allocated to environmental conservation in Argentina and its consequences for fundamental ecosystems and species.

On the obverse (front), the work alludes to the genocide of the indigenous peoples of Patagonia. The presence of an indigenous face depicted "without ears" refers to the historical practice where half a penny was paid for each ear of an indigenous person, pointing to the violence exercised in the construction of the territory.