Worth 2 Billion I’m Told explored the priceless currency of popular culture through a lens of bejewelled shutter shades. Drawing on our shared experiences of growing up in the era of Gen Z humour, celebrity obsession and rapidly evolving technology, the exhibition reshaped the 21st century through a our worldview that is at once ironic, idealistic and deeply personal.

Celebrating excess, rudimentary materials and unapologetic #SWAG, we revisited seminal moments of 2000s popular culture. Works made on obsolete computer programs such as Kahootz, references to iconic songs by LMFAO and Katy Perry, and Hama Bead pieces fused with a $7 kitchen iron were presented with an intentionally contradictory commitment to the conventions of the white cube gallery. The result was a space where calculated crudeness and curated absurdity were elevated to the status of ‘high art’.

Beneath its humour and visual overload, Worth 2 Billion I’m Told examined the effects of technology, nostalgia and celebrity idolatry on the human condition. The exhibition posed questions such as: “Is this really what we care about?”, “Wasn’t she cancelled?” and “Has it been that long?” In this sense, it functioned as a strange educational site: one that reflected on industry, invention and the ways contemporary culture shapes memory, desire and identity.