documenta fifteen, INLAND, Kassel, 2022, Photo: Nicolas Wefers
The Cheesecoin was invented as a fictional currency to fund a campaign against a Reality TV company that appropriated the name of INLAND’s project and invaded their area in 2017. It was initiated in collaboration with artist Hito Steyerl.
The currency follows the cheese standard of INLAND, meaning that the collective issues a certain number of Cheesecoins based on the annual amount of cheese produced. In the first stage, the Cheesecoin models an experimental economy, which is in transition from a purely speculative one to a real one. The Cheesecoin is part of a nonlinear economy which mimics neighborhood economies, which run in parallel to capitalist market economies. It sits on top of a conventional market economy for products produced by the collective, such as cheese, intimately related to them, but also refers to traditional gift economies.