The Waterworks of Our Money

In The Waterworks of Our Money, cartographer Carlijn Kingma, Professor of New Finance Martijn van der Linden, and financial investigative journalist Thomas Bollen map the financial system in a unique and accessible way.

Background

If money is compared to water, the monetary system can be seen as the irrigation network that nourishes the economy. Just as irrigation enables crops to grow, money allows the economy to function and develop. As long as money continues to flow, society should prosper. In reality, however, wealth is distributed unevenly. While some accumulate large amounts of wealth, others have limited access to financial resources. Today, a small number of billionaires hold more wealth than half of the world’s population combined.

This raises important questions: who creates and distributes money? Where does it flow to? Why does the financial system not work for everyone? And how could it be organised differently? The Waterworks of Our Money addresses these questions and shows that the financial system is not a natural phenomenon, but the result of political choices. The project visualises how the monetary system works and explores possible directions for reform.

Objective

The project aims to make the financial system understandable to a broad audience. Through metaphors, visualisations and storytelling, it explains how money flows through the system, who controls these flows, and how this influences the distribution of wealth.

In addition, the project explores possible alternatives to the current financial system and highlights the political choices that shape it.

Research

Since early 2021, the team has been developing The Waterworks of Our Money, including future scenarios and an analysis of the housing market. More than 200 experts have been interviewed, ranging from central bankers and board members of pension funds and banks to politicians and monetary activists.

The team produced hundreds of sketches and validated these with experts and stakeholders. Carlijn Kingma developed the cartographic visualisations, while Thomas Bollen and Martijn van der Linden created the narratives for the accompanying video animations.

The maps, animations and stories have been presented at institutions such as the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, and the Venice Biennale, as well as at festivals including Lowlands and Springtij, and within financial institutions such as Rabobank, Triodos, Deloitte, and the Dutch Ministry of Finance.

In addition, the team has delivered more than one hundred lectures and twenty workshops, published dozens of articles and a book, and received several awards, including the Meesterverteller Prize (2022), the Dutch Design Award (2023) and the Amsterdam Prize for the Arts (2023).

Funding

The project received funding from Follow the Money, the Creative Industries Fund NL, Brave New Works Foundation, Rabobank, and the Interledger Foundation.

Future

From 2026 onwards, the team will focus on mapping the legal and international dimensions of the current monetary system and possible alternatives through cartographic visualisations, animations and publications, in collaboration with legal experts and civil society organisations.

More information

More information about the project can be found on WaterworksofMoney,  and in the article ‘The waterworks of money: making money and finance accessible’.