A banknote is just a piece of paper. But Justine Smith asks what does a banknote actually represent?

Like her exploration of international currencies, Justine’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the world. Most notably, her artworks are in The British Museum, The British Council, The British Library, and even the UK Government’s own art collection, in addition to numerous corporate and private collections.

The artist’s current series of work look deeply into the concept of money and how it touches almost every aspect of our lives. She is interested in money as a conduit of power and in the value systems with which we surround it. Through her collages, prints and sculptures she examines our relationship with money in a political, moral and social sense, whilst also exploiting the physical beauty of the notes which have themselves been purposely designed and printed to please the user. Are bank notes art in themselves? Is the designer at the Bank of England, who pulls together historical portraits and serial numbers, an artist? It is a collectable after all.

‘Money Map of the World – China’ takes the artist’s questions and her approach to currency into the 21st century. A series of bitcoin algorithms runs across the background of this map. The numbers become an international currency spreading, or trading, across different geographies. Are they cutting out the traditional beauty and patriotic identity of each currency? Or are they creating a global currency for good?