Antoinette J. Citizen and Courtney Coombs are independent artists in their own rights, who – since their days as undergraduate students – have been friends and occasional artistic collaborators. While their individual practices respectively focus on ideas relating to technology and in negotiating patriarchal, heteronormative society, their collaborative relationship often centres on ideas of conversation and communication as a means to overcome their physical distance. Frequently, humour is employed as a strategy with which to earnestly engage with more serious or subversive ideas relating to their own positions as early-career artists, and to the practice art-making as a legitimate form of labour.
An online symposium exploring ideas of basic income and the need for an approach to economy that puts creativity and care at its centre. Led by a panel of artists, researchers, economists, scientists and philosophers, the symposium responds to current and ongoing planetary crises, and positions creativity and social ecology as integral to shaping policy and systems of value.
The Symposium is a joint initiative of Arts Front, BLINDSIDE and Next Wave and was supported by the City of Melbourne COVID-19 Arts Grants.