The American Reputation Aid Society

The American Reputation Aid Society (ARAS) is an interactive installation and cooking performance that aims to conduct international politics on a more inter-personal level. This project casts a satirical light on the international aid industry, and examines the way we deal with nationality and encounter one another on a global level.

Mission
The American Reputation Aid Society is a not-for-profit, alternative model for providing foreign aid. Based on the economic model of a gift economy; this project is void of negative motives for providing foreign aid such as defense support, market expansion, foreign investment, and missionary enterprise. Moreover, this project is an alternative model for a more co-beneficial relationship between the countries giving and receiving said aid. The American Reputation Aid Society is an experimental place designed to improve, discuss, and develop better ways to be an environmentally and ethically responsible member of the global community.

This project operates out of a mobile kitchen (aid wagon), which would be placed in public markets in and around Weimar. In a series of on-going public performances ARAS would distribute excellent examples of home-cooked American food as an invitation for a conversation about food, culture, personal histories, national identity and international policy. This project involves people in an artistic experiment that deals directly with the challenging topics of food, culture, sustainable food resources, globalization, and mass-media-systems, while asking the larger question how we can all become better members of the global community.More information can be found at WWW.USREPAID.ORG

Photo: Sven B Mueller