Art Project ‘The Waterworks of Money’ Maps Financial Power and Bitcoin’s Role

A major collaborative art and research project, ‘The Waterworks of Money,’ has spent two years mapping the hidden architecture of the global financial system, with one of its scenarios exploring a monetary future shaped by Bitcoin.

The project, created by Dutch artist Carlijn Kingma, journalist Thomas Bollen, and researcher Martijn Jeroen van der Linden, depicts the financial system as a vast network of reservoirs, channels, and pumps. It illustrates how money creation and distribution lead to areas of abundant liquidity and others that remain ‘perpetually dry,’ examining the link between monetary design and inequality.

The work is based on over 100 interviews with experts from banking, government, and academia. Bollen noted a key public misunderstanding is that banks create new money when they make a loan, acting not merely as intermediaries. He argued that years of cheap credit primarily for the wealthy have driven asset inflation, exacerbating inequality.

Kingma described using water as a core metaphor for money’s liquidity and flow, though representing the system’s interconnectedness and the different forms of money posed a significant artistic challenge. The collaborators will discuss the project and Bitcoin’s place in Europe’s financial future at the upcoming Bitcoin Amsterdam conference.