Marrickville School of Economics

Bek Conroy

Year the project commenced:2016 
Year it became impossible but also transformed into something else: 2020 
The audience reached is greater than it would have been had it not become impossible.​​​​​​​
The Marrickville School of Economics (MSE) draws on experimentation from other parts of the world, and empirical research from our own backyard, to equip those with the desire to redesign the economy with the knowledge and skills to speak confidently about how we could build a new one. Artists are workers and as such they do economy. But how they do economy is different in many respects to how it is conventionally talked about and understood. In many ways the artist is a stubborn round peg in an impossible square hole. MSE is an (ongoing) artist-led pedagogy and experiment in doing economy differently. It was first conceived by artist and researcher Bek Conroy in the Southern Hemisphere Spring of 2016 and ran for a year at Frontyard Projects in Marrickville (NSW). In 2017 it debuted in Folkestone (UK) with Madeline Hodge as part of the Live Art Development Agency DIY workshop series and in partnership with Folkestone Fringe (and then again with the Folkestone Triennial).
After the twin disasters of Australia’s fire season followed by COVID, the desire to redesign the economy was made particularly urgent. So in a way the impossibility of gathering not only made this investigation more present but by taking advantage of everyone's obligatory switch to all things online made it possible to open up this artist led pedagogy to many more people, internationally as well as locally. Although not originally conceived as a purely online event, after finishing its first module (April - June 2020) it will now continue online for the next 3 modules (August 2020 - March 2021).
In collaboration with: 
Maddie Collie (formerly Hodge)

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