You're about to start coming across strange coins all around the city; this is why, and this is what they mean

“My mum has this saying, ‘there’s no pockets in the shroud’,” says artist Ryan Gander. “She’s like some kind of some suburban middle class Buddhist, and means I’m not going to get any inheritance probably, but she’s got a point.

“We understand the world by stuff. Things, articles, objects, and we always want more, more, more. Actually we should be understanding the world by events, and conversations and moments, things that we can take with us.”

His latest work, launched today at the Manchester International Festival, is called The Find. It takes the form of 200,000 coins, valueless in monetary terms, but specially minted for a sprawling display that will disperse its way all around the city and well beyond too, in the pockets of anyone who finds them.

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100 volunteers have been out and about, placing the coins on benches, in bus stops, ledges, window sills all over town. The coins also come with a choice on each side; together or solo, action or pause, and speak or listen.

You can then do what you wish with them. Put them back, keep them, use them to make decisions. Some honest folk have already been handing them back in to community support officers and at the Central Library.

“People are so honest,” he says. “Very honest Mancunians. It’s quite weird. There are very few things in the world that are a gift, so to give a gift to a third of the population of a city, it’s a remarkable thing.

“People take different things from it. I’ve met people already who carry all three in their pockets and they said they’re going to carry them for life and use them.

“There are two audiences really, there is the audience that know about