5:30pm-6:30pm on Friday 17 March
Times shown are in GMT (UTC +0) up to the 26th March. For events on or after 27th March times are in BST (UTC +1).
Ancient India and Iran Trust, 23 Brooklands Avenue, CB2 8BG
'A dowried wife, friends, beauty, birth, fair fame,
These are the gifts of money, heavenly dame' (Quintus Horatius Flaccus c. 21 BCE)
'Goddess of Golde, great Empresse of the Earth,
O thou canst doo all Things under Heaven' (Richard Barnfield 1598)
'The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power ... It is the visible divinity' (Karl Marx 1844)
'Money is power, freedom, a cushion, the root of evil, sum of blessings' (Carl Sandburg 1936)
'There is nothing that does not happen with metaphor and by metaphor' (Jacques Derrida 1978)
The Power of money has been recognised through all ages, as articulated by poets and philosophers. Today when we talk of money as ‘currency’ and of ‘circulating’ notes and coins we turn to metaphors. Money itself is a physical metaphor for the value we place on objects and people. The notes and coins we use carry visual metaphors of the power of the state and banking institutions. The recent Fitzwilliam Museum exhibition 'Defaced! Money, Conflict, Protest' showed they can also be a metaphor for undermining power. This talk will explore how the images on money depict the power that sets it to work, and how the ways we represent money both support and defy its power.
Joe Cribb is former Keeper of Coins and Medals at the British Museum. He is Adjunct Professor of Numismatics at Hebei Normal University and a trustee of the Ancient india and Iran Trust.
www.indiran.org
@INDIAIRANTRUST
