Loose (Chains) Change

Mia: There is a value that these people already come with that also needs to be

implemented into the digital space to make it more universal to human experience.

Hollis: Welcome to the Future Money podcast, presented by the

Interledger Foundation, where we invite people of all backgrounds

and disciplines to imagine what a financially inclusive future might be.

I'm Hollis Wong Ware, and I'm a Community Ambassador with

the Interledger Foundation.

And

Lawil: I'm Nabil Karama, the Program Officer of the Interledger Foundation.

This is the second episode of the Future Money podcast, and we're in

conversation with Mia Wright Ross.

Mia is a Brooklyn based artist, a leather artisan, and she's the creative

director and founder of MWR Collection.

Hollis: In this episode, we discuss how central familial ties are in her work,

her relationship with her craft, art, and design, and how she was inspired

to apply for the Future Money grant to develop her work, Loose Change.

Mia: My name is Mia Wright Roz.

I am a leather artisan based in Brooklyn, New York.

Um, I'm originally from Richmond, Virginia though.

I work across the board in different aspects of design, but primarily in

leather crafting where my work is focused.

I also make handbags, accessories.

The length of my professional career has been in footwear design and accessories

design and I'm the founder and creative director of, um, a luxury atelier,

um, by the name of MWR Collection.

My artistic career is an extension of that work and goes into abstract

tapestries, weavings, and sculptural work.

That's me in a nutshell.

Hollis: I love this concept that like your artistic practice is kind of an extension

and outgrowth of the highly practical art of making apparel and accessories and

just curious like whether it was in your childhood or what inspired you initially

to not only craft apparel and accessories but also what drew you to leather.

Mia: As a medium, I enjoy leather because it's so unforgiving, right?

So, like, once I make a stitch, once I make a cut, I have to live with it.

And being, um, an artist, I think a lot of us are really heavy on the eraser

sometimes because we want everything to be perfect and correct and exact.

And I think Leather for me does that.

But even when I make a mistake, I have to live with it.

So it's a harsh reality that I have to make beautiful.

The original love that I had for that practice was my mom used to like we used

to do like mommy and me dates, right?

So we would always go to like coach and she would like get her leather

bags cleaned or like go and do errands around around the city.

But I specifically remember, uh, Going to the coach store with her because

she had like a collection of coach bags at the time and it was like

a big thing for like when I turned 13, I would get a coach bag, right?

So when I walked in, I love the smell.

I love the experience of like caring for the bag.

If my mom had an issue or something broke, she was able to like sit with

them and discuss the terminology and the technology that it would take to

heal the bag for lack of better words.

And I think that became my integral memory for me as I continued to grow.

I had always been in art, right?

I had always been in museums and museum programs from like my early youth.

Um, so I had already been making mixed media work, painting,

oil painting, all these things.

But I was also a part of a creative high school that allowed me to explore

apparel, accessories, all those things.

And one of my First dresses I made was out of the sheets of my

great grandmother's linen closet.

So I took them and like painted them.

I just knew I was going to be a fashion designer had always said

it from a very young age, um, but had been in these art programs

that didn't have fashion involved.

Um, so I kind of just broke the seal and did it myself.

Um, and ransacked my grandma's linen closet.

Do you still have those pieces?

I believe my mom does.

She has like one of the first original dresses I made, like in

this Tiffany blue with like beadwork.

And this was when I knew nothing.

My mom went to Walmart, bought a sewing machine and gave it to me and was like

Here's some patterns, figure it out.

I have, we had a few people, like one person, it's Gracie and our family that

knew how to sew, but she taught me a few things and then I kind of just went

on my own and kind of started exploring and realizing it was just a puzzle.

And a puzzle that just needed to be figured out and had

different ways to be interpreted.

My whole high school career from like junior year to senior year became fashion.

And I was one of the first people in my program at the Center for the Arts

in Richmond, Virginia to start fashion.

And now they have a whole fashion program, which is really great.

And then left there to go to Parsons School of Design here in New York.

That's how I ended up in New York.

But while I was there, I took a footwear designing class with my mentor.

He's still my mentor to today, Howard Davis.

Once I got into his class, I was like, Oh my God, this is a material

that I finally, I know I love, but I've never really got my hands on.

He then helped.

Start my career in footwear, and we still work together today.

Lawil: So how, if you look back into that time up until now, because you still

work together, how has he shaped you?

Mia: I feel like when it comes to Howard's contribution to me directly, it

comes through the knowledge of like the examination and the experimentation of

footwear in the comfort sector, right?

So he is a person that it overlaps into what I do Especially for the

project that I'm working with for future money, because it again reminds

me that we are creating a object or something that is also to be connected

with the human experience, right?

I think what he's really instilled in me is that we have to make sure that

we're making a product for human beings to experience and to elevate their lives

and to also adjust to their evolution.

The way in which he's directly impacting me, I believe, is just how conscious I

have to be of the people, the persons, the community that I'm creating for.

Hollis: I really love that.

And that kind of dovetails with a question that I had for you with just how.

Hands on and artisanal, your practices, like what it was like for you to enter

into the world of fine art and like what that transition or, or that inclusion

of that world was like for you and bringing in the more like potentially

like theoretical, esoteric, abstracted, how was that entree for you and

incorporating that into your practice?

Mia: The initial transition happened out of frustration, right?

So out of frustration with the fashion industry because I

have worked in it since 2011.

I'd say that I made my exit in 2019 and the frustration was more so with

the industry at large, people not caring about what we were making.

Um, the speed in which we had to make, right?

Because at the same time I'm working in the fashion industry,

I still have my own company, M.

W.

R.

Collection.

So I'm hand making the entire time.

And I think the process of me always instilling that and I knew that craft

and artisanal processes were still pivotal to the fashion industry,

even if they didn't think so.

Um, made me realize like, Oh, this is becoming this industry and what it stands

for and what it is willing to deal with.

Um, I personally cannot any longer.

It kind of like left me with a little bit of PTSD.

Oh, I completely understand.

And I saw areas where I needed healing and I knew other people did as well.

Um, so I exited the fashion industry to become a teacher, to

become a professor at Parsons.

And then upon.

Transitioning into that space.

I was like, Okay, I have a lot of existing emotion around making,

but I also still enjoy making.

So I started making, um, these working on these tapestry works.

One of the first ones is called Timeline, which is basically every

Piece of like, when I get on my sewing machine, you start like just getting

the rhythm of the sewing machine.

Like, Hey, machine, how's it going?

I know what happened to you in a minute, or we were working together last week

and you were on some other stuff.

So just to get like a meditative reacclimation to the machine.

I always do like small little stitching marcos.

Um, so instead of discarding them, I would just collect them.

Right.

Um, so I didn't have like these rhythmic Viewings or interpretations of what

I had been emotionally dealing with with a certain project or just coming

in the house and being exhausted and just wanted to do something for me.

So I would just get on the sewing machine and I had like, uh,

yeah, just a collection of them.

So I started weaving them together.

And one of the pieces, um, on timeline is actually a baby shoe.

I made the first baby shoe I made for my knees.

Um, so I can like look back and say, okay, this is the spirit I was in at this time.

This is what I was feeling at this time.

And that's kind of how it started to evolve because I needed.

Yeah, I needed an outlet, um, that didn't need to be product, like

productivity or to be, um, a form of consumption or commodification.

Lawil: But it sounds very immersive, this timeline.

It was a time of healing.

Mia: It's a potent theme throughout my work, um, is like, so Timeline started

from that healing and then I had, so as I said, I transitioned into the Museum of

Art and Design, and that was in 2020, so I got the residency at the Museum of Art

and Design in 2020 in February, but then we went on lockdown in March, um, so I had

to take everything, um, I had just moved my entire home studio to 59th Street,

And then, uh, they told us, Hey, we don't know how long we're gonna be away,

but, uh, you should pack what you need.

Um, so instead of my other mentor, who is a phenomenal photographer, Bill

Gaskins had already come to visit me.

And he saw that my studio was unbelievably packed with A bunch of things that I

didn't necessarily need to be working on . And he was like, so what is the focus?

Like what, this is the time that you can like let go of the commodification and the

industrial utility aspect of your work.

You can just kind of be free of that.

What are you left with?

So the act of having to get everything together because we were

going into lockdown was like, okay.

Let me look at the work that I've been doing for the past 10 years, like,

this is the time I haven't been able to do that because I've been working.

Right.

And that retrospect was also healing to be like, oh, wait, I've done

a lot in a little bit of time.

What does it look like when I can Remove everything else.

And it's just the me that needs to be in view.

How did you approach

Lawil: that?

Mia: I remember the exact moment.

I was looking at one of the suitcases named after my great grandmother, Bernice.

And I looked at it and we were like, so what about it is the

thing that is gravitating?

you towards it.

And I was like, Oh, the whip stitch.

So the whip stitch is one of the signature details that we

use in MWR collection, right?

It's the leather cording.

It's a solid leather cording that we stitch around the perimeter or the scenes

of all of the works that we produce.

Um, and it is literally our signature.

So I took the cord and that was all I had.

So when I was working, um, as an extension of the work that I had

already done in timeline, I had already started a new work that eventually

became to happen to whole, which is another tapestry, large scale tapestry.

I believe it's at least 11 feet tall now.

I started this work in the pandemic, but also as an extension of my healing

practice and my grieving process, um, with the loss of my grandmothers

who had passed away in 2017.

Um, so again, because we were like in isolation, I'm like

dealing with all of these things.

Same thing that happened when I left the fashion Industry like, oh wait,

I get a breath and now I can actually feel the things that I need to feel.

To get back to the question too, the initial reaction I had coming

into the artistic fine art space was very much like, you're not a

fine artist, you're a craftsperson.

Lawil: That's a very strong distinction always.

Like they are very sharp on that.

It's a

Hollis: false binary that over emphasizes and overly privileges these like Western

colonial forms of not only like medium and expression and devalues and like

frankly dehumanizes the like crafts.

I'd love to just hear more just transitioning into the

project that you developed for Future Money, um, Loose Change.

Could you just tell us about the project and kind of how it sparked?

Um, how I got here, Lord.

Mia: So this, Loose Change Change, is a series dedicated to

my great grandmother, Bernice T.

Tolerite.

Um, she passed away in 2019, but was a avid, like, Lottery player.

Like it was her thing.

We know that about her.

We love that about

Lawil: her.

Did she send you out to buy her tickets?

Mia: Yes, she sent us out, like, especially when I moved to New York City.

When I moved to New York City, if I flew, like, any travel that I was doing, like,

if I was anywhere that had the lottery, I needed to bring her back a ticket.

Um, so as I, like, in our family, like, just examining this.

tradition that we had created in homage to her, I was like, well,

why is it that we do these things?

Why is it the lottery as a black American?

What is it that I have a history attached to the lottery that makes

this so integral and also does not is not only familiar to me.

It's familiar to so many other people too.

So I started collecting the words.

I started building like small tapestries, like working with backing

it with leather to kind of give it the strength that I thought it needed.

And, but still also working in the same processes that I would use to make my

leather tapestries or my leather work.

So I'm collaging the lottery tickets together, then

backing them on the leather.

I'm stitching them on the sewing machine.

I'm stitching some of the paper tickets just on the sewing machine.

So there's a level of fragility that also is.

Um, apparent even though it's integral to the capitalist structure

and the strength of hope, you know, in this idea of the lottery.

Um, so it really became like a research of like, why in, uh, why

is this such a thing that litters?

Black and brown communities, right?

Lottery tickets are things that are primarily in like a 7 11 or a liquor

store or some type of bar, you know, but they're primarily in our communities.

I think the, the introspection of trying to understand why my great

grandmother had this relationship with it.

And what my community, what I saw was apparent in my community was like, okay,

wait, there's a history of colonization.

The 13 colonies was funded by the lottery structure.

Like it is apparent within the history of America.

Lawil: But you explain it a little bit more because I'm like, I'm not American.

So I need to learn right now.

This is a learning moment for me.

The 13 colonies.

Let's start.

Yeah.

Mia: So the 13 colonies, the foundation of America.

So it's basically before the 50 states where the 13 colonies, this

is how they established it through the lottery and the gambling of land.

And, um, and yeah, so the lottery was created so that you could petition.

To come in and purchase land.

Lottery's also existed for the slave trade, same way with auctions.

It's an integral history of the place that we stand.

So, and the idea is that the marketability of it, right, is that this is the make

your own life, the make your own hope, the hope of that you can make a million

dollars, the hope of that, if I was just a millionaire, if I was just a billionaire,

I can have the American dream.

Right.

If I could, if I hope and I petitioned to get that land that's in Virginia,

um, so that I can be a landowner and then I can be a slave owner

and then I can be a millionaire.

Right.

It's a, it's this idea that is persistent with this false narrative of hope.

Hollis: And the like deeply false concept that like, well, That

there's a randomization to wealth.

Lawil: Yeah.

Hollis: It's this narrative to mask the calcified wealth disparity

that this country was built on.

Mia: Mm hmm.

It's so intricate because it's a game.

So it can't be that serious, right?

It's a game.

All you just, I just put in a dollar, I'll put my loose change, I'll use my

loose change to practice or to like.

Participate in the game, but you know, if I lose it, it was only

a dollar, but that dollar could, I mean, move to somebody else.

Yeah,

Lawil: because it's the direct accumulation of everybody putting

like a dollar in the pool that makes us kind of like a whole lot of money.

And that's what scares me.

And what

Mia: could have.

Right?

So the example of the tapestries that I'm leaving with change is what could have

happened if you did not contribute to the game of the lottery industry, right?

So the liaisons, the community liaisons that we employ now we

have our main one who is Mike.

He's been working with me since I moved to Brooklyn.

So I would say 2021 and I really started working and collecting these works.

Thanks.

Because on my block, there is a, uh, liquor store at the very end, and

the block is always littered, like, splattered with lottery tickets.

The gravity of this is also crazy.

Like, on a daily basis, it's so many lottery tickets.

In an area where there is a community, like, bottle recycling place, so

you have a lot of Uh, marginalized people coming with their huge bags and

carts to recycle just for five cents.

Right?

So again, like I'm seeing the remnants of what capitalism

does in so many different ways.

So when, when I started working with Mike, I had already been like, just

picking them up on the street and something told me, um, cause Mike is.

A healing veteran that I like, I like to say he's a healing

veteran that is basically like our community mayor on the street.

And I was like, Mike, you're always out here.

I also noticed that he was like cleaning.

He will always clean our block and make sure that it looks

like livable for us and for him.

Right?

Um, so I was like, okay, well, if you're doing this, maybe I can just ask because

I can't pick them up all by myself.

Right?

It's too many and the work, the gravity.

How I see this work being so expansive and helping the community.

I need help.

Right.

So I employed him to be like, Alright, so every ticket you give, I'll give you

like 20 cents or 25 cents or 50 cents per ticket, depending on how many you give me.

And that's how we started building a relationship.

And it also gave him like, Another avenue to create some type of

revenue other than trying to like ask for money on the street.

And it also empowers them.

Hollis: I think what the theme that I'm hearing a lot, even in from your personal

experience to the community experiences, like this concept of reclamation, like how

are we honoring like the ritual and the tradition within this while also defying

or rejecting the false premise that this game was built on and this kind of,

Thought that like wealth disparity can be like magically disappeared through chance

or luck or falsehood of this randomization when it's all deeply Interesting.

It's planned.

Um, and so I'm curious, like, as we think about the theme of future money, right?

And like, what have your learnings been or any insights that you've gained,

like doing this very, again, like artisanal and also community focused

process and then also thinking ahead for like new visioning, like new

modalities of community resourcing.

Um, what's come to light.

Through working as part of both within your own art practice, as

well as being part of the cohort.

Mia: I think the cohort specifically has made me like Open the scope of what

I see and make it multidimensional.

Right?

So it's more.

So yes, we are physically helping people.

Yes, there's a tangible, uh, like reality, right?

Again, that has been apparent in my work, but also that they're in

attached to that tangible reality is like this digital space that also

can give some evolution revolution and some, uh, yes, uh, some you.

even even playing field, right?

Um, and I think most of that the way in which I've been able to see it be

interpreted is being able to have a digital format where the community

liaisons are the people that are coming that are receiving funding or who

need the resources that we offer can.

Not only depend on the physicality of collecting the lottery tickets,

but also they can become a part of the uplifting, right?

So as it's helping them, it can help somebody else through our cohorts.

I've been realizing like, Oh, wait, that could be in the form of an app or of a

vending machine that can go and receive.

Just like they do with the, um, recycle bottles, you can go to a

space and you can say, all right, so I've collected this amount.

This is what I'll be receiving, right?

And there's a form of exchange, but also expanding it into the

digital space where this can be in the form of digital markers.

It can be in the form of access to certain resources or being able to

click an app and be able to To go get a food voucher from somewhere

else from a community or organization that's working with us with the cohort.

I've been able to be more expansive of how we can really kind of balance

and create a more even understanding of how the money and how the exchange

and the appreciation of value, right?

And not just the money, but what the thing is that you value can

be interpreted across the people that are engaging in this process,

specifically our community liaisons.

And one of the ways in which I've been trying to implement this is now when we

have, when we bring on community liaisons.

It's having like a digital survey where they can kind of update what it

is their needs and necessities are.

If they've changed, if some of the things that they needed before they

don't need anymore, or if they also want to recommend somebody to our

services, someone who is a community liaison, or maybe someone in their family

that also just needs the resources.

And then that resource can also be exchanged if it be in a digital marker

or It could be a access to an app or some type of structure that also allows

them to be able to then learn about this new digital landscape instead

of just being a person that's like in on the remnants of it or does not get

access to it because of some type of hierarchical financial structure, right?

Lawil: Are the persons who are the community liaison liaisons, are they

mostly people from the periphery or is it like, what are the requirements?

Mia: Um, there are no requirements.

So usually if you need help of any format, a lot of our liaisons are

either in recovery programs, are houseless, veterans, healing folk.

So if anybody who needs any type of help.

And usually does not have access to financial, like regular financial

structure, being banking structure.

They can always come and help, right?

So in the forms of exchange, we've been doing is yes, through monetary

exchange, but also through like MetroCard.

So I've been like purchasing MetroCard.

So then they have access to find a job or to go to their recovery program because

we've been able to implement the survey.

For example, Some of our liaisons will say, Hey, well, I don't really need that

right now, but I do need a pair of shoes.

Like I do need that, you know, so it's a multi resource output because it's

based on what their needs are and not necessarily, um, what we can just offer.

Right.

And the, and the Great thing about that is that it's able to evolve with who they

are rather than just stereotyping them.

It's like, Oh, well, you're a house person.

So I'm going to give you the thing that I think you need.

And that's what I believe the future money has kind of like brought

to my awareness is that there needs to be a discourse, right?

Because even in the digital input of not even transition, but the input

of that structure into the loose change change, like, yeah, the.

process.

It allows for there to be knowledge exchange, right?

So yes, this is the digital landscape that we want you to understand and

the value that can be attached to it.

But also there is a value that these people already come with

that also needs to be implemented into the digital space to make it

more universal to human experience.

Lawil: What type of technologies have you kind of like discovered up until

now that could kind of like potentially be beneficial for your project?

Mia: So it's been very like bare bones when it comes to technology because we're

trying to really focus on the ways we need to integrate those narratives of

past into the technological advancements.

So I guess one of the kind of like bare bones version of what I intend to

eventually do is that now we have Uh, recycling boxes in certain, like, local

businesses, um, so that, because even with some of our liaisons, some of them are

disabled, so they can't go around, right?

But they can decide, hey, I have two or three of our local businesses

that are already sponsoring us.

So I can say I'm going to go here on Tuesdays and I can make sure that

I have transportation or that I'm resting enough to go pick those things

up and then drop them off, right?

And my interpretation of how that can eventually become a technological

transition is that there eventually can be an app gives people access for

those who do have phone accessibility or some type of vending machine experience

so that it's already in a safe space.

That they have access to, that they can like maybe put in some type of digital

code that marks who they are and then there can be a creation of like some

type of card or some type of, yeah, some type of card transition so they can have,

and then they can say, okay, yeah, I want a digital currency or no, I would

prefer to have, Monetary currency, or I would rather this be interpreted to,

uh, the local grocery store and I can use it to buy food or the local shopping

center where I can buy clothes, right?

So that's the, the intention and the goal in which I'm factoring in the

technology, which is why I'm excited about the summit because I want, I know

that there are already technological like structures that are built, but I

don't think they're working in the way In this like resourceful multifaceted

way from this psychotic standpoint.

Yeah.

Hollis: I mean, I hear there's like such subversion in the work and a

type of fashioning not intended or not, um, like self determination.

And what does that look like outside of the bounds of the state?

And what is that?

But also, and what does that look like by cultivating relationships?

that you have done, whether it's your art practice, the organizations that

you're engaged with, breaking out of the bounds of fine art and everything

existing in the theoretical and really like going into a place where it's like

relationship building and community building, which is like personally

what I see as being where hope becomes.

Possible and tangible and actually creating solution based things versus

just kind of the premise or the thought,

Mia: um,

Hollis: moving beyond theory.

Mia: I realized even like with the future money support, I was

like, Oh, wait, we're actually helping people and they're healing.

Like one of our liaisons who was amazing, like she would bring like trash bags

full of recycled lottery tickets.

Her name was Joanne.

But she transitioned into a recovery program in Virginia and was like,

the month before, I was like, Hey, just so you know, I won't be here.

And I was like, what do you mean?

And she's like, well, I'm going into a recovery program.

I had some health stuff, but I want to go get something.

I was like, Oh my God, there's some.

amazing, right?

But I don't even think I even thought to the point where no,

we're actually healing people.

So we're going to have to create some type of digital structure or

technological structure that allows us to not only just keep track of them, but

also make sure they still continuously have access to these resources.

Hollis: I feel like we could talk for another couple hours, but we're going

to wind down this episode and just, um, a plug that you're going to be

exhibiting what sounds like kind of like a section of the loose change tapestry.

Mia: It's now 15 feet by 6 feet, which Loyal is looking at me like,

I'm like, and I'm like laughing away.

Cause I've been going back and forth like, should I cut it off?

Should I cut it?

Um, but it works.

It's beautiful.

So me on this flight is going to be something interesting.

Hollis: So you're flying with a 25 foot by six foot leather.

15 feet.

Thank God.

15 feet.

My bad.

My bad.

Mia: But it's getting there for sure.

Um, the goal, the end goal is as well is for the work to evolve to be 40 acres.

Um, because apparently that you know, that's what we were supposed to receive

in our emancipation in our, our freedom, you know, um, so the goal is I think the

first stage I want to at least get it to one acre, um, in the in length and size.

And I've been also working to find, um, like seed space where we can

maybe implant seeds into the work so that once It continues to evolve.

It actually can birth some flowers or things in depending on how we decide

to install it in different ways.

So, yeah, there's a lot of evolution and how expansively thinking about the

gravity of what it will hold and what it will represent, but also how it can then

feed back into the communities in which are helping build the work for sure.

Hollis: Absolutely.

That's so awesome.

Well, we really appreciate your time and the level of thoughtfulness and

engagement that you've had in this project and just sharing with us.

About your journey as an artist and now really as a community

organizer through the medium of art.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And I guess like, that's the last question I have for you just to close this out.

I think oftentimes we as artists are constantly fighting to be like.

In the conversation in the room when it comes to issues of

systemic exclusion or inclusion, financial exclusion and inclusion.

And I guess my question is like, what is the message or the thought that

you have for folks who still don't quite understand why it's important

for artists to be integrally involved in creating new systems that are

genuinely inclusive and equitable?

Like what is your take on why it's important to center artists and

creatives as we build out what future.

Mia: I've always said that, uh, artists are world creators.

If you are foreseeing what we should be doing in another 20

years, uh, artists probably already thought about it 50 years ago.

They're probably somebody who has written it down and has a whole

protocol on how you should do it.

And they are usually an artist.

Um, and I think that's because we're not just visionaries,

we're also interpreters, right?

So even the knowledge that I've gained from being in the cohort with Future

Money and even from the practices I've had at MAD and my own practices and

teaching at Parsons and working with like Carnegie Hall, all the different

organizations I've worked with.

They enrich the ways in which I'm thinking about the dynamism of the

communities that we have, but also because I'm an artist, I'm able to

see the little corners of things that nobody's thinking about, right?

So the ways in which I'm able to interpret my vision and the grab the

themes that we're focusing on and the problem solving that needs to happen,

because I think what ends up happening is we're so focused on, Oh yeah, it's.

It's got to be technology or we're so focused on, Oh, it's got to be

art, but you don't realize that all these things overlap anyway.

They overlap.

It's a melange.

Yeah.

Like we should want it to, and that's what makes it so beautiful and dynamic is when

we are intricately arguing, debating about how these things can kind of birth anew.

So I feel like artists in ourselves, we get a bad rep.

Because we are, yeah, we're expensive in our thought.

But if we're not, then we're already limited, right?

Because if I'm only talking to a finance person about the

future of the world, they're only thinking about it through finance.

It's not about value, right?

Because what we're talking about is the interpretation of value.

And not just the commodification of value.

So yeah, I think artists, as long as we keep doing what we've been doing and not

looking for anybody else to tell us what we're supposed to be doing, it will always

happen because the ideas come from us.

So there's that.

Hollis: That's true.

I really love the way you phrase that.

And I think that's a, that's a really poignant way to end this.

Episode, because I think a lot of what we're talking about, like what

interledger foundation is focused on is this whole point of value and the

intrinsic value of each individual.

And that it's not just like that your net worth defines how valuable you are

in society or how value, you know, that a bank can determine like how valuable a

person is, but being far more expansive about what it means to be valuable.

And respecting and recognizing, even in

Mia: that structure, it changes on a daily basis.

Hollis: That's right.

Mia: Like the euro versus the dollar versus yen, it changes on a regular basis.

So why would I be going?

Hollis: Exactly.

Totally.

Mia: When in certain communities, yeah, certain like a woven cloth is

valuable, just as valuable as a dollar.

So it depends on What artists or what interpretation aspect

you're coming at, for sure.

Hollis: That's so real.

But I think just like what I'm left with to reflect on and to feel emboldened

by is that like artists and creatives, they, we reset and redefine what value

means and recognize that like value is not what you have in your bank account

or like value is not the passport that you hold or passport, you know, like

any of these kinds of state defined.

Mechanisms of

devaluing

Hollis: individuals on the margin and like how can like creatives really allow for

a dignity and a value to emerge and to be defined for ourselves and our communities.

So thank you, Mia, so much for our conversation here.

This has been wonderful.

guys!

You did it!

We got it together!

Right on!

Yay!

Lawil: Thank you for listening to this episode.

I'm

Hollis: LaVille.

I'm Hollis.

And of course, make sure to subscribe and like our podcast on Spotify, Apple

Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Lawil: To learn more about the Interledger Foundation, just

visit our website, interledger.

org, where you can find all published episodes, and of course, more information

on our guests, grant programs, and other Interledger resources.