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Decoding E-Money II

By: Graham Iddon


March 15, 2016

This exhibition is in fabrication

Clearly we hadn’t got our display units sorted out yet.

The last time I blogged about our upcoming travelling exhibition, Decoding E-Money, I described the process we went through in order to choose a name. We were a little late in getting that blog out, so plenty had already happened on the interpretational planning front by then. But reading about exhibition content spreadsheets and artifact tombstone labels really is a big snore. So this time I thought I’d wait until we had something more exciting and concrete to show you: actual prototypes, finalized designs—that sort of thing.

And now I do.


Our map of payment system routes was one of the most difficult areas of interpretation in the whole exhibition.



The heart of the exhibition is the cryptocurrency zone, a semi-immersive and rich visual area.



The fun and easy quiz feature will provide a break and a place to sit.


But just before I take that leap, let’s talk content. This has been an extremely challenging exhibition to develop. We are taking, for us, the unprecedented step of interpreting something that is not only current but continually changing. We do feature over 60 historical artifacts, nevertheless this time the interpretation of history was a relative piece of cake. Interpreting the present or even the recent past, however, was anything but. The subject matter is often in a state of flux where nothing is cut and dried and much is open to dispute.

Where does the money go when you pay with a debit card? Or how do we describe the highly complicated steps of processing a Bitcoin transaction? Luckily we have an office tower full of financial experts on hand and we’ve been gratefully relying upon them to help us get the content right. Though very happy to help, it was a little like the economists and analysts spoke Finnish and we spoke Hindi. It took all sorts of meetings and about a square kilometre of whiteboard space before we got all the content to a satisfactory place. That place is somewhere between the comprehension level of a clever 12 year-old and that of a central bank economist—thankfully closer to the former.


Thirty taped-together sections made up this mock-up of a final panel design.



The external panels of the cryptocurrency zone evoke high speed data transfer and interconnectedness.



The quiz station in its mid-construction phase at the fabricator’s workshop.


And now we have someplace to put all this content. In consultation with our own designers, the exhibition development team has been working hard to produce a presentation whose visual character and immersive qualities reflect the frenetic and high-tech world of electronic money transfer. Much of the content will be available via touch panels. This is not only the natural choice to reflect the modernity of the material, but crucial when working with content that can and will change over the life of the exhibition. It’s just a whole lot simpler to change text on a computer than on a printed panel.

Tracing the roots of e-money on a late version of our hands on history timeline.

The Bitcoin mining simulation game. It’s just too difficult to explain what that is so you’ll have to come to the exhibition.

Some of the interactive systems are fully functional; some are still in the paper and tape stages. The big display units are nearly ready and most of their winking lights and animated projections are operative. It’s pretty exciting and looks great. Over the next few weeks we will have a fully functioning exhibition ready for final testing and tweaking. Stay in touch.

Who didn’t want a Lite-Brite© when they were kids? The exhibition title is a moving LED text light.

We want to hear from you! Do you have an idea for a blog post you’d like to see?
Content type(s): Blog posts

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The Museum Blog

February 2, 2023

Teaching art with currency

By: Adam Young


From design to final product, bank notes and coins can be used to explore and teach art, media and process.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): Arts, Education Grade level(s): Grade 05, Grade 06, Grade 07 / Secondary 1, Grade 08 / Secondary 2, Grade 09 / Secondary 3, Grade 10 / Secondary 4, Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5 and CEGEP
January 20, 2023

New Acquisitions—2022 Edition

By: David Bergeron, Krista Broeckx


It’s a new year—the perfect time to look back at some notable artifacts the Museum added to the National Currency collection from 2022. Each object has a unique story to tell about Canada’s monetary and economic history.
Content type(s): Blog posts
December 6, 2022

Money: it’s a question of trust

By: Graham Iddon


Photo collage, parking meter, old bank notes and an early bank card.
The dollars and cents we use wouldn’t be worth anything to anybody if we didn’t have confidence in it. No matter if it’s gold or digits on a hard drive, public trust is the secret ingredient in a successful currency.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): Economy
November 14, 2022

The day Winnipeg was invaded

By: David Bergeron


People on the street were randomly stopped and searched, and some were even arrested and imprisoned in an internment camp. Even German marks replaced Canadian currency in circulation—in the form of If Day propaganda notes.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): History Grade level(s): Grade 10 / Secondary 4, Grades 11 and 12 / Secondary 5 and CEGEP
October 18, 2022

Positive notes

By: Krista Broeckx


The imagery on the Bank of Canada’s 1935 note series depicts the country’s rich industrial history.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): History
June 16, 2022

Army bills: Funding the War of 1812

By: David Bergeron, Graham Iddon


In 1812, British North America had no banks and little currency. With the prospect of war drying up supplies of coins, the government of Lower Canada decided to issue legal tender notes called “army bills” to pay for troops and supplies.
Content type(s): Blog posts Subject(s): Economy, History
May 5, 2022

Between tradition and technology

By: Graham Iddon


Collage, man at an easel, paintings of birds and a goose illustration with comments written on it.
What was proposed was a complete about-face from the philosophy behind recent security printing. If photocopiers could easily deal with the colours and designs of the current series, then the next series should be bold and simple.
Content type(s): Blog posts

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