Exhibition of defaced money to include Harry and Meghan banknotes
Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum will host the exhibition.
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.An exhibition of defaced money “mutilated as cries of anger, injustice or despair” is to go on display, including a banknote featuring the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum will host the exhibition called Defaced! Money, Conflict, Protest from Tuesday.
It has been billed by the museum as the “first major exhibition to present a world history of protest through currencies that have been mutilated as cries of anger, injustice or despair from the last 250 years”.
Harry and Meghan appear in a 2019 work by Boo Whorlow called Harry of England/Ten Megs, a reworking of Banksy’s Di-Faced Tenner which featured Diana, Princess of Wales.
In the work, the duke replaces the Queen and Meghan appears on the reverse with the message “Trust No Press”.
Other pieces include a fake 20 US dollar bill with slavery abolitionist Harriet Tubman on it, and a coin commemorating the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, when 15 people were killed at a protest meeting in Manchester as the working class fought for political representation.
Artist Sean Kushner created a satire featuring Donald Trump on a colourful one dollar banknote saying “Maybe bae will buy me a wall”, with a smaller illustration of Russian President Vladimir Putin next to him, hinting at the alleged links between the two.
The Fitzwilliam Museum said: “Money is the perfect medium to highlight issues of wealth distribution, including the chasm between those at the top and the bottom, and the effects on those living in poverty.
“It has been used by artists to draw attention to the links between government policy and the financial and banking systems.
“Against the backdrop of our current cost-of-living crisis, times of inflation, spiralling costs and debt, the exhibition’s themes in which currency has been, and continues to be, created and defaced in protest remain urgently relevant.”
– The exhibition will run from October 11 to January 8 and admission will be free.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.