Taking Artists into the Academy
Artists in residency - March 2013

The visitors are artists whose work spans the full range of artistic endeavor, included playwriting, acting, directing, dancing, musical composition, choreography and creating performance art. More than a dozen professors, whose research agendas span the full range of contemporary economics issues, participated in the event.

The artists spent the day in discussion with professors on topics as varied as the price of keeping secrets in the former Soviet Union, the inner workings of the UK’s Monetary Policy Committee, and why emotions such as happiness and anger are providing new areas of new economic research. They served as participants in a small economics research experiment about happiness. They examined Zimbabwe’s billion-dollar notes, as part of a discussion about hyperinflation. Department Head Abhinay Muthoo set the tone for the day when he welcomed them to the Department by explaining that economics is about money, yes, but also possibly about all that matters in life, including love and religion.

This is the second year the Department has participated in the event. In 2012, the Warwick Arts Centre launched the pilot for This_is_Tomorrow. It is one strand of our Arts Council England seed-funded transformative programme seeking to establish the principle of artists working collaboratively with academics at the University of Warwick. The event was designed with the Arts Centre’s Associate Producers China Plate, in collaboration with the department. The artists are also visiting champions in each department.