Open Field Agency
An infrastructure for making things public and making public things.
An infrastructure for making things public and making public things.
An artist-led experiment in delivering public art the other way around.
Contact
Country
Dharawal Knowledge Keeper Shannon Foster:
We acknowledge that the Country now known as Waterloo is Nadunga Gurad (sand dune Country) known for millennia for its nattai (sweetwater/freshwater) wetlands.
We pay our respect to all of the people connected to the kinship system of this Country including the Dharawal, the Dharug, the Eora, the Gaimaragal, the Gundungurra and the Guringai.
Ngeeyinee bulima nandiritah
(May you always see the beauty of this earth)
The Open Field Agency and MAPA Art and Architecture acknowledge that this research, design and creative work is happening on the unceded country of the Awabakal, Dharawal, Dharug, Eora, Gundungurra, Gadi, Gaimaragal, Guringai and the Worimi people.
We respect the wisdom of the Elders past, present and emerging. This continent always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.
Program
→ 2025
University of Newcastle architecture intensiveStudent work showcase 4 July 2025
14 September 2025Launch and planting day
About
→ 01.04.2025
Open Field Agency is an artist-led experiment in
delivering public art over time within private development through
durational residencies.
It is public art reframed as a slow, incremental
process of making a place more public.
The Open Field Agency hosts artists, scientists, architects, carers, historians, performers, reserachers, students and others in a residency space. The
task of Open Field Agents is to tend to the openness of this place.
Its’ social and spatial openness through their own
work, research, conversations and creations.
We
are an artist and an architect, finding our own agency in the context
of city making. Since 2017 we have had many conversations with locals
about their desires and fears for this place and these have been the
catalyst for the Open Field Agency.
The Open Field Agency is being delivered by Heidi Axelsen and Hugo Moline in partnership with MAPA Art + Architecture and funded by developer contributions to public art for the Danks Street South Precinct in Waterloo, NSW, Australia.
→ Call out for 2026 + 2027 residents
Residents gain access to a 12 sqm private studio space and a 12 sqm openable workshop space designed for public programs.
The residency takes place within the construction site of 921 Bourke Street, Waterloo, so residents should expect noise. Evenings and Sundays are construction free times.
You can apply to use the space free of charge and there are a limited number of funded residencies available to apply for.
Applications open : 1 September 2025
Applications close: 30 November 2025
Criteria.
• Regenerative practice
• Enacting care for public space and publics through creative practice.
• Socially and/or spatially engaged work
Each resident is to propose a process of open research by which they produce:
• An event or series of events (this could be a workshop, discussion, meal, tour, event or social happening). Events should be open in that they allow for input by participants and frame a process of mutual discovery. Further events related to the dissemination, culmination and celebration of this work are encouraged.
• An addition or additions to the Open Field Agency archive (this could be film, audio, photography, scientific analysis, an interview, a field recording, a flag, a map, a diagram, a song, a recipe etc.) These works should be produced through or in connection to the proposed events.
More information.
The Open Field Agency reframes public art as an ongoing, community-based project, working closely within the complex processes of urban redevelopment. This approach was conceived of for the Dank Street South Precinct after many discussions with locals and community organisations about how to maintain social and spatial openness of a place which is undergoing rapid transformation. In our discussions with the local community about the Dank Street South Precinct we were faced with a series of questions:
• How can this place become and remain truly public?
• How can we bring together the voices of new and old communities and in process enrich a public space where all feel welcome?
• How can we harness the power of redevelopment to resist exclusive gentrification and make space for existing communities of First Nations, working class people and creatives in the city?
• How can we embed ongoing creation of culture here, now and into the future?
In response to these questions, the OFA will facilitate an ongoing series of creative residencies for artists, First Nations knowledge keepers, scientists, historians, researchers, community groups and others. Each resident will be tasked with inciting and continuing discussions with the diverse publics of this site, proposing new uses, forming new collectives and augmenting the public space.
Re-imagined as a process of slow, repetitive care, public art becomes the ongoing practice of tending to a site and the many publics who may use it. The project’s new approach to public art moves beyond the creation of one- off interpretive objects to become an ongoing practice of tending to a site and its many publics. It creates an ongoing practice of making things public. Of nurturing and caring for the publicness of a site. In this case it particularly involves tending to and maintaining the site’s openness of access, of meaning and of opportunity.
Learn more about the background of the project here:
OPEN FIELD AGENCY PUBLIC ART STRATEGYCity of Sydney Concept Design Summary