Money

New commemorative £2 coin (materials from around the world, used mainly in the UK)
Undergraduate class work (2010): a group of students at the University of Exeter set out to find what goes into that most ubiquitous and strange commodity: money. They search online for the ingredients of the £2 coins that sit loosely in their pockets, and then design a new coin to commemorate their findings. Click for more...

£20 banknote (made from cotton, probably from Kazakhstan, used mainly in the UK)
Undergraduate coursework (2009): student Oli Busk gets angry when he has to pay a £100 parking fine. He starts to think about all of his cash, what it's made from, and who makes it where so he can give £100 of it away 'for nothing'. The manufacturer won't help, so he turns to educated guesswork. To his surprise, the hidden labour he finds is undertaken by people like him. Click for more...