Exhibition and Workshop »BanKanga InterTropical – Experiments in Financial Techno·fagia«

If the globalized notion of a bank originated from the italian banca , the merchant’s bench, what might a bank look like if it had emerged elsewhere? BanKanga InterTropical imagines its foundations not as wood but as cloth: the canga of Brazil and the khanga of the Swahili Coast. These textiles unfold as temporary grounds for gathering, carrying, offering, resting, and exchanging. Here, trust travels farther than money and roots remember longer than credit scores.

Along the road, the canga collected stories of rotating savings circles, also known as roscas, susu, or chitchit, and protocols for communal labor, such as minga and mutirão. Carrying accounts of community banking in Brazil and commitment pooling in Kenya, the BanKanga invites us to ask: What can decentralized technologies learn from traditions of reciprocity and mutual aid in the tropics?

At Project Space Römerstraße, BanKanga InterTropical offers an evolving spatial environment, braiding diagrams, textiles, maps, and hanging structures that introduce reciprocal traditions from different tropical regions. One could think of a street fest in which the architectures of trading are creolized through multi-situated economies and collectively-backed forms of value.

The BanKanga space will host a series of protocol activations – a temporary community is invited to cast spells for a post-money bank, invoking a gradually growing infrastructure of reciprocity. Rather than presenting alternate economies as historical curiosities, these gatherings activate them as living social technologies through collective experimentation. The bank becomes less a vault than a commons continuously assembled through those who gather upon it.

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Program:

Tue, October 27, 2026, 5 pm–9 pm: Soft Opening with various activities throughout the evening.
Wed, October 28, 2026, 5 pm–8 pm: The exhibition is open to visitors.
Thu, October 29, 2026, 5 pm–8 pm: Workshop »Feiticinhos – Casting Spells for a Post-Money Bank« exploring forms of mutual aid and exchange beyond monetary transactions; registration required.

The entire program will be held in English.