'Art and Economy' Portfolio 2020 ('MoneyLab #X' and 'Thorny Question of Art and Economy: A Conversation Piece')

BACKGROUND: In a time of disaster many people are compelled to examine the economic systems and narratives that have driven them towards cataclysm. Nancy (1986) describes ‘myth as a recitation through which community is conjured; its origins narrated, its destinies explained (or interrupted)’. The research asked what ways are the economic mythologies of the APAC region in the arts distinct from those currently emerging in the Northern Hemisphere? CONTRIBUTION: The project’s transdisciplinary methods drew from expertise across art and design, software studies, critical theory, economic history, art history and systems design. The multisite events digital broadcasting and publication outputs exemplified the Frascati (2015) model of systematic creative research, using the novel deployment of transdisciplinary artistic research to establish an archive of images, texts and ideas for future researchers. SIGNIFICANCE: The first series in the Southern Hemisphere MoneyLab #X leveraged a network of world class researchers and artists as well as industry and community partners in building a transdisciplinary research agenda on alternative economies that stretches across our planetary archipelago Australia, Asia, the Pacific and beyond. Satellite sites Ainslie+Gorman Arts Centre (ACT) is a leading public space for contemporary art exhibit amongst the national capital’s largest collective of professional artists and Bett Gallery (TAS) one of Australia’s foremost contemporary commercial art galleries, The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) showcases world class art, and has been compared to the Guggenheim Museum.