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Field Rooms launched! More +   

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→   Field Rooms Launched!

On the 14th September 2025 we launched the Field Rooms with the opening of the Festival of Urbanism and an a picnic to celebrate the beginning of the Placeholder Residency program.

A huge thank you to all of you who joined us for a beautiful spring day on Gadi country. We loved sharing the story with you of how these spaces came about and the journey we have been on in the past nine years.

We are very grateful to all those who have contributed so far and excited for the future connections that will be made.

The Field Rooms dwell on unceded Aboriginal county - Nadunga Gurad. They are small spaces to dream big, to incrementally build publicness of a site long locked away.

Get in touch if you would like to make use of this space!

Whats On in the Field Rooms

 Waterloo Spring Festival - Danks St District by DASCO

Clare Lewis - Waterloo local filmmaker

Clare Lewis and Catherine Skipper- Waterloo locals

Swamposium

Pilot resident: Bek Conroy

Festival of Urbanism:  Open Field Agency

→   2025 pilot residency

From October 2025 - December 2025 we are testing this brand new residency program with a dear collaborator of ours Bek Conroy who has agreed to be our pioneer! MAPA collaborated with Bek Conroy and other incredible artists, architects and academics on Yurt Empire many moons ago. More info on that here. +  

Artist in Resident - Bek Conroy
October - December 2025

In this residency, Bek Conroy will be researching and conducting a series of casual informal experiments using colouring in (yes, colouring in) as a methodology for slowing down and disrupting the increasing prevalence of predicative technologies on our bodies and logistical systems. Starting with assertion that The Body is a Sensory Apparatus, this residency will investigate the powerful capacities of the fascia, vagus nerve, interoception, and gut microbiome systems of the human body. These magnificent computational and predictive technologies of the flesh constantly ingest our environment and together with our past histories assist us in how to take action in the world.  More +

→ Call out for 2026 + 2027 residents


Where.  921 Bourke St, Waterloo (entrance off Young Street - opposite Artbank )
Duration.  1 - 4 months
When. 24/7 access
Cost.  Free

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. 

More information on how to apply coming soon, register here

 to be the first to know!

 We are currently seeking contributions to the progam and waiting to find out about grant outcomes before announcing the call out. 

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. 

About

→ 

→   THE MAKING OF THE FIELD ROOMS

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: