Dispatches from inside my life.

Rebecca Conroy is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher working across site, community engagement, and performative interventions through artist led activity. Her work is bound up in mimetic strategies and the playful occupation of non-art fields such as urban planning, economics, and housing, particularly where it concerns the behaviour of cities and the rise of the creative entrepreneur within finance capitalism. She has previously worked in the role of Festival Director (Gang Festival), Associate Director (Performance Space); Provocateur (Splendid Arts Lab & Artist Wants a Life & Strange Attractor and Critical Path) and has been the co-founder and co-director of two artist run spaces in Sydney, The Wedding Circle and Bill+George. From 2011 – 2014 she was conductor of The Yurt Empire, a rogue housing project and encounter in the inner city of Sydney. Right now she is developing a suite of projects about art and economy called A Very Beautiful Laundromat. In 2015 she spent 3 months going on a series of dates with economists in Europe and North America, for an audio piece called Dating an Economist commissioned by Radio National (2016). In November 2017 she premiered her new work Iron Lady, a performance intervention—part espionage, part invisible labour—set in the finance district of Adelaide, SA. In April 2018 she was the inaugural artist-in-residence at the Monash Business School, producing a video and performance work called Dating an Accountant, commissioned for the group exhibition Art and Labour at RMIT. Currently Rebecca is working on the Money Laundering project to start an artist-run laundromat with a bunch of savvy women in social enterprise and the arts. Most recently she facilitated a choreographic lab Hacking the Anthropocene for Strange Attractor and Critical Path presented as part of the Sydney Festival 2019, and was lead facilitator on the Experimental Art Exchange presented in Adelaide by Vitalstatistix and Australia Council as part of Adhocracy 2019.

“Enabling Community Land Trusts in Australia” Co-Editor with Louise Crabtree, Carolyn Sappideen, Stewart Lawler, Rebecca Conroy, Joanne McNeill, Arena Publishing, Sydney, 2019

“Practising Self Care in the Arts” NAVA May 30, 2019

“Art and Economics” NAVA March 26, 2019

“Critical Dialogues: Hacking the Anthropocene” Editor, Issue 11, Critical Path. May 2019.

“The Artist’s Exceptional Labouring Body” in Connie Anthes & Rebecca Gallo, Make or Break: A Live Art project. First Draft Gallery: Sydney, May 2016

“A Very Beautiful Laundromat” in National Association for the Visual Arts online publication April, 12, 2015. visualarts.net.au

“The Dark Matter of Black Markets” in pvi, Blackmarket Performance Space: Sydney, 2015 performancespace.com.au

“Between Science, Art and Social Design there is community: An interview Andreas Siagian” Inside Indonesia. 11. October, 2014. Print. insideindonesia.org

“We’re all Economists now, baby” Runway_Money, 11, Sydney: August, 2014. Print. runway.org.au

“The Nostalgia of the Drive In and “Community Arts”: Aphids in Dromana. Realtime. Sydney: Opencity, May 21, 2014. realtimearts.net

3 – 4 August, 2019. Lead Facilitator, ‘Experimental Art Exchange’ as part of Adhocracy at Vitalstatistix with Australia Council.

6 March, 2019. Presenter, ‘Bodies, Space, and the Anthropocene’ hosted by Sydney Environment Institute and 107 Projects.

7 February, 2019. Presenter, HOTA Salon Series, Gold Coast Arts Council

20 January, 2019. Public Forum ‘Hacking the Anthropocene’, MAAS/Sydney Festival.

Workshop series – ‘UnMapping Archipelago’ Jakarta – Yogyakarta – Jatiwangi Indonesia December 10 – 24, 2018

18 September, 2018. Workshop Presentation, ‘The Guts of the Economy’ at Custom Folkestone, Folkestone, UK.

1 Sept, 2018. Workshop presentation, ‘The Guts of the Economy’ at Galway Feminist Collective, Ireland.

8 June, 2017 “Walking to Laundromat: A mindfulness guide for when capital penetrates your body” Panel presentation, New Materialisms Conference. Paris, FR.

3 June, 2016 “Creative Careers” Guest panelist for Vivid Festival, Art Gallery of NSW
vividsydney.com

1 June, 2016. “Designing a Smart City is a no-brainer” Conversations for the Future/City Facilitator with guests Dr Sarah Barns (Urban Research Fellow, WSU) and Kati Westlake (Senior Planner, TfNSW)

3 – 4 Sept, 2019. Lead Facilitator, Experimental Art Exchange, Presented by Vitalstatistix and Australia Council as part of the Adhocracy program, Adelaide.

20 -27 Jan, 2019. Lead Facilitator, Hacking the Anthropocene , Laboratory of Choreographers, Produced by Critical Path and Strange Attractor, presented Sydney Festival.

10 – 24 Dec, 2018. Workshop series – ‘UnMapping Archipelago’ Jakarta – Yogyakarta – Jatiwangi Indonesia

18 Sept, 2018. Workshop presentation, ‘The Guts of the Economy’ at Custom Folkestone, Folkestone, UK

1 Sept, 2018. Workshop presentation, ‘The Guts of the Economy’ at Galway Feminist Collective, Ireland

20 – 24 Feb, 2017. Walking the Line. Workshop with 2nd and 3rd year studios exploring experimental approaches to drawing through movement and mapping. National Art School (Sydney)

Oct 2016 – July 2017. Lead Instructor. Marrickville School of Economics, Frontyard Projects, Marrickville, NSW.

July – Nov, 2016. Cultural Leadership for Masters students, UNSW Art and Design

March – June 2016 Professional Practice UNSW Art and Design

1998 – 2013 Associate Lecturer, School of Drama, Fine Arts and Conservatorium, University of Newcastle. Teaching in Performance, Community Culture Development, Theatre and Socially engaged practice.