Emmanuel Quartey

Local currencies are used to keep community wealth circulating within the community instead of heading out into the wild blue yonder of internet shopping or national chains. There are a few communities—Ithaca, New York for example—that are actually implementing it. We were challenged by Jason Santa Maria to create our own forms for local New York neighborhoods. I chose Little Italy which has shrunk over the past 50 years from a culturally rich, wide area of Italian-American heritage and family life to a three block row of tourist-trap restaurants. My goal was to establish a link between using the currency and reversing the deterioration of the neighborhood.

To create that link I not only designed bills that reflect periods in Italian design and typography, but also turned the back of the bills into a vintage map of Little Italy, which grows in size as the denomination grow with it. The lowest denomination shows Little Italy as it stands today; the highest denomination shows it at its largest. When visitors spend the higher denominations within the community, it’s directly suggested that they’re acting to tangibly re-grow the boundaries of the neighborhood to its heyday. It’s an economic and cultural battle cry of sorts.

(via Strange Native)