Meriç Öner: Saving/s?

“Saving/s?” is a long-term research into resourcefulness across food, construction, and finance. It identifies diverse production methods, from pickling vegetables and crafting adobe bricks to generating blockchains, as a collection of personal skills. The research catalogs tools, technologies, and communities inherent to these processes.

Actions that extend resources from the present into the future also enhance the value of potentially perishable surpluses. For instance, pickling or jamming tomatoes prolongs their lifespan, where the combination of skill, time, and knowledge elevates their worth beyond the sum of their ingredients. Similarly, mixing soil, straw, and water into adobe bricks transforms them into durable building blocks, significantly altering their volume and weight while ensuring long-term material resilience.

The concept of a “savings” account parallels these principles of surplus and longevity: setting aside earnings to mitigate future uncertainties. Originally driven by the desire to preemptively safeguard against hardship, this practice mobilizes fear into financial action, creating capital. However, accumulating or maintaining any size of wealth is challenging, particularly in volatile economies. In 2022, approximately half the populations of Turkey and Nigeria had engaged with cryptocurrencies, often investing nominal amounts as a hedge against immediate losses.

“Saving/s?” aims to document everyday personal economic practices while reconsidering the broader implications for the Earth’s well-being. It explores the nuances between “save” (rescue, preserve, avoid), “saving” (accumulate), and “savings” (set aside money), reflecting on incentives for making and preserving, to compile a comprehensive catalog of traditions of frugality. This research serves as a preliminary outline for an upcoming exhibition.