“Everything is About Money” – research performance project & documentary film

Director and artistic leader of the project: Boris Bakal – intermedia artist, writer, director, and performer (HR).
Co-authors, dramaturges, and performers: Adriano Girardi – actor and performer (IT), Manuel Buttus – actor and performer (IT), Daša Grgić – choreographer and dancer (IT/SLO), Elena Husu – actress and director (IT/SLO).
Premiere: August 21, 2018.

The performance “Everything is About Money” explores the relationships between social and material values on one hand, and money as a means of communication and exchange on the other. It delves into personal narratives of the actors, real financial flows, the ongoing contemporary financial crisis, and the ambiguous role of money in societal exchange. The concept for the project emerged from the banking and financial “revolution” on the global market, which in real-time monitors parallel financial operations, investments, and their impacts on the environment, individuals’ lives, states, governmental systems, economic sectors, and economies.

The project’s research currently focuses on countries such as Croatia, Italy, Slovenia, among others. Throughout the project’s research phase, testimonies are continuously gathered on personal experiences with money: from investments, accumulation, enrichment, inheritance, impoverishment, and instances of poor financial luck to renunciation of material and financial possessions or general disregard for wealth. Cities like Trieste, Zagreb, Koper, and Bitola serve as locations for collecting testimonies, conducting discussions with experts (bankers, lawyers, philosophers, programmers, cryptologists, hackers, educators), working with children and youth in schools, holding relevant exhibitions, participatory-theatrical performances, and as settings for an upcoming documentary film.

Support for the project includes: Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb – Office for Culture, Friuli Venezia Giulia Region.
Support for Shadow Casters: National Foundation for Civil Society Development, Kultura nova Foundation, Creative Europe: MEDIA Sub-program.