Athena Robles & Anna Stein C

Title: Counter Culture Cash: Local Currency in Jamaica Queens

Location: Jamaica Queens, NY

For our project, we introduced Jamaican Bucks, a form of local currency for Jamaica, Queens, and posed two questions: 1. What if money made on Jamaica Avenue stayed in Jamaica; and 2. What if Jamaica had its own money?We distributed the Bucks by making a public photo booth where we paid participants five (5) Jamaican Bucks for their portrait, resulting in a collection of nearly100 portraits. The Bucks were redeemable at designated vendors for a limited time on Jamaica Avenue, a retail thoroughfare. The goal for Counter Culture Cash was to reinforce the local economy and build connections based on trust and mutual exchange among the people in Jamaica.

Artists Athena Robles and Anna Stein work in collaboration as Double A Projects, bringing together their practices using historical and cultural references, public space and paper media. Their recent project, Counter Culture Cash: Local Currency in Jamaica, Queens reflects their interest in examining counter culture systems in their work. The project was on view at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning in Queens, NY and was featured on artnet.com. In addition, work by Double A Projects was exhibited at Fountain Art Fair in Miami and Front Room Gallery in Brooklyn.

Athena Robles is a sculptor, installation artist and printmaker with an MFA degree from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (1995). She has shown nationally, including at the Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI (2006), American Museum of Natural History, NY (2005) and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY (1998).

Anna M. Stein is a sculptor and installation artist who received a BFA degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University, Boston, MA (2001). Stein's works have been featured at Front Room Gallery (2007), Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT (2006), and Longwood Art Project, Bronx, NY (2005), among other locations.