We are Lane Shordee and Nikki Martens, a creative duo investigating urban sustainability, ecology, and the economy via performance & installation. Our General Store is the first pop-up store that trades in the eight different forms of capital: Material (M), Intellectual (I), Living (L), Spiritual (Sp), Financial (F), Social (So), Experiential (E), and Cultural (C). At The General Store we recognize that it is the sum of these eight forms that contribute to a thriving, holistic, and sustainable community. The store becomes a research tool to see how these different forms of capital intermingle and coexist. Each iteration of the store begins with a varied stock of goods that gets us going: coffee, jokes, pins, and haircuts for example; but our inventory is primarily sourced from what the community has to offer and is willing to trade. These trades are documented within our sacred ledger book, which acts as an organic narrative of interactions. Past recordings include: “a beet for a beat”, “witch protection for craft supplies”, and our ever-popular “coffee for a joke”. Trades range from the ephemeral to the tangible, and together become an all day act of participant/artist based performances driven by the question of value. Fleeting goods, such as life stories or sage advice are collected as audio or video, which can then be traded back to participants in the form of ‘Cultural (C)’ or ‘Intellectual (I)’ capital. Physical objects become vectors for the exchange of ideas. Ultimately we are asking our beloved customers what has value to them, how do we measure that value, and how do we come to an equally beneficial exchange?
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Lane Shordee 