City Talks Amsterdam: Show me the money

With her drawings, Carlijn Kingma (researcher, artist & cartographer) creates worlds in order to understand the world around us. Together with different collaborators, she maps the social, political structures around us and reflects on the complex structures of our society. One of her latest work is The Waterworks of Money - that she initiated together with Martijn Jeroen van der Linden (Lector New Finance at Haagse Hogeschool) and Thomas Bollen (investigative journalist at Follow the Money) - in which they charter the influence of big money on our society. Who creates and allocates our money? Where does it all go? And why doesn’t the financial system work for everyone? The Waterworks of Money recently won the Dutch Design Award in the category Design Research.

How do irregularities in our financial systems affect individual well-being? Jurenne Hooi is an independent consultant and experienced supervisor within the social domain, with a focus on poverty reduction, welfare, inclusion and good governance. For over twelve years, she has been a director of an organisation dealing with debt problems in Amsterdam-Zuidoost, Diemen and Curaçao. Debt problems are a social problem, and closely linked to, among other things, not being fully able to participate in society, increased absenteeism, poorer health, and reduced brain functioning. An additional issue is energy poverty, which disproportionately affects this group. In her book Eigen Schuld..., Jurenne describes how our current debt assistance is inadequate and advocates an effective approach in which rules and protocols are not leading.

Jackie Ashkin is a spoken word artist and researcher. Half-Malaysian and half-American, her writing draws on twenty-something years of experience living between and across cultures. Join her for a lyrical tour of intrusive thoughts and hot news items as she tries to make sense of a world falling apart at the seams - without getting too sad about it. Jackie is currently based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where she lives with her bearded dragon.

How can the past help understand the present? It is a central question in the work of Tom van der Molen, curator at the Amsterdam Museum. Tom is an art historian specialised in seventeenth-century paintings, but with a much broader field of work and interest. In Panorama Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Museum's collection presentation for which Tom is responsible as a curator, visitors are invited to explore social and economic topics and what Amsterdam's past means from their own perspective. What is relevant to you and what consequences do you experience?