about the project

Valor y Cambio is a story-telling, community-building, and solidarity economy project started as a response to Puerto Rico's debt crisis. On-site there and in New York for five years, Valor y Cambio is out to spark a broad conversation about what is a just economy and how to foster collective empowerment in the face of austerity and neoliberal policies locally and nationally.

The project has roots in 2016, when artist scholar, curator, and professor Frances Negrón Muntaner co-led research on the debt crisis in Puerto Rico as part of a working group at Columbia University. In 2018, Negrón Muntaner and visual artist, educator and museologist Sarabel Santos Negrón team up to design the Puerto Rican social currency, and the project Valor y Cambio was named.

Since its creation, Valor y Cambio has encouraged participants to consider how a community can create different conceptions of wealth —one that promotes values such as accessible education, a clean environment, creativity, self-governance, solidarity, food security; and gender, labor, and racial equity. 

How it works

At the center of the project is a community currency: the pesos of Puerto Rico. The six pesos of Puerto Rico bills have denominations ranging from 1 to 25, which are accessed through a mobile “Valor y Cambio” (VyC), an ATM-style device. They feature Puerto Rican athletes, activists, writers, and communities that have acted on their values to enrich people’s lives, and in that way asserted that “change is in our hands.”

To participate in Valor in Cambio, you must visit the VyC ATM to exchange your thoughts and stories for the stories conveyed by the pesos. Below are the key steps:

• STEP 1: Answer the VyC ATM’s questions about what you value and what changes are necessary to support what you value, and tell a story about a person or group that already does what you value. The machine will record a short video of your answers and story.

• STEP 2: The VyC ATM will dispense the pesos of Puerto Rico at random.

• STEP 3: Keep the pesos. While in the first rounds, you could exchange them for products and services —from a cup of tea to theater tickets— in participating local businesses and organizations, the 2024 edition pesos are available only for collection and educational purposes.

• STEP 4: Learn more about the iconic figures on the pesos of Puerto Rico!

Designed to challenge the inequities that communities such as Puerto Rico, Loisaida, and East Harlem face, the Valor y Cambio currency shifts the power back to the community residents. We hope these inspiring stories will stimulate the exchange of a diversity of stories about the wealth and values of the community. Join the conversation!