R100 Things Fall Apart
R100 Things Fall Apart 2021 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 189.5 x 89.9 cm
R100 made out of the entire text from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
R100 Things Fall Apart (detail)
detail
Z$100 Billion Animal Farm
Animal Farm Agro-Cheque 2021 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 141.5 x 76 cm
Z$100 Billion Agro Cheque made out of the entire text from George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
As the economic crisis in Zimbabwe began to escalate in the early 2000s the government clamped down on the freedom of press leading to the bombing of The Daily Mail in 2001. As a response the paper published Animal Farm in daily instalments. (see: https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/mail-guardian/20170203/281861528235847)
With the resulting hyperinflation the government kept printing ever-larger denominations of banknotes. In 2008 they released large denomination Special Agro (Agricultural) Cheques for farmers. With the exponential rise in food prices, these Agro Cheques made their way into general circulation. The Z$100 Billion Agro Cheque was the largest note in the second series of the Zimbabwean Dollar. It shared the record for the most number of zeroes depicted on a banknote with the Yugoslav 500 Billion Dinar note of 1993, up until 2009 when Zimbabwe issued even larger denominations.
Z$100 Billion Animal Farm (detail)
detail
Z$100 Trillion
Z$100 Trillion 2017 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 82 x 163 cm
The Z$100 trillion note was the largest ever printed in Zimbabwe. It came at a time when hyperinflation had soared so high that it reached Z$300 trillion to the US dollar on the black market in February 2009. Shortly afterwards the Zimbabwean currency was abandoned and replaced with US dollars. The Z$100 trillion has become a collector’s item.
100 RMB 2018
100 RMB 2018 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 83 x 168 cm
In 2015 the Zimbabwean Minister of Finance announced that they would make the Chinese yuan their main reserve currency and legal tender after China cancelled US$40 million in debts. However this has not materialised. Currently there are nine currencies that are legal tender in Zimbabwe but 90% of transactions are in US dollars.
Z$57,718,918 2018
Z$57,718,918 2018 Map of Zimbabwean farming regions hand-woven with a progression of shredded Zimbabwean bank notes that amount to Z$57,718,918
Z$535,507,918 2017
Z$535,507,918 2017 Map of Zimbabwean farming regions hand-woven with a progression of shredded Zimbabwean bank notes that amount to Z$535,507,918
82 x 89 cm
