CURRENCY DICTIONARY
12 Digital Prints, 110x140 cm, 2007 - 2010
Self-published book, 42x59,4 cm, 18 pages

Currency, by definition, is charged with symbolic value, only valid if the community accepts its value. The currency dictionary is unexpectedly thematically ordered and categorized according to the artist’s observations. Vardarman’s dictionary thus functions to foreground currency as a system. The system, which uses categories including zoology, measurement units, situations, points back to the origin of currency as a tool to ascertain order and stability and later of propaganda and authority. The thinking behind producing currency, including arms & military and/or names and symbols of rulers, help identify the power structures of the communities that produced the currency. A microcosm of social, cultural, and political values, the currency dictionary functions to form overarching themes and concerns that humans shared through the course of history. Names, images and short definitions of the currencies are classified in categories due to their meanings. Vardarman traces 6000 currency names in his research. He manages to record ca. 2000 currencies with all their relative information.