Performance Lecture by Stefanos Tsivopoulos ‘Alternative Economies An Archive and a Manifesto’

This performance will take place in CH312 at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University

In this performance lecture ‘Alternative Economies: An Archive and a Manifesto’, artist and
filmmaker Stefanos Tsivopoulos explores how systems of value are constructed, circulated, and
ultimately destabilized. Value, he argues, can be found in unexpected places—trust, aspiration,
empathy, or hope—and is constantly renegotiated between individuals and communities. From
informal economies in small societies to the speculative abstractions of global markets, the
lecture traces how both are built upon shared fictions and collective belief.

In this talk, Tsivopoulos proposes that “we” are the real currency that gives meaning to the world
around us. By unpacking these layered exchanges—between economy and empathy, matter and
meaning—he calls for a new understanding of value rooted not in capital, but in beauty, memory,
and the ethics of care.