OFA


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. We respect the wisdom of the Elders past, present and emerging. This continent always was and always will be Aboriginal Land.







Whats On


Current


Past

SwamposiumSunday 23 November 2025
More here

All of Us Artists
Local Clare Lewis is hosting a Sunday music jam and kissing booth. 
2- 5pm
Sunday 26 October  + Sunday 2 November 2025

Waterloo Spring Festival - Danks St District by DASCO
10am - 3pm
Sunday 19 October 2025 
Artists Keg De Souza, Heidi Axelsen and Bangawarra will be using the Field Rooms to have conversations about their developing work for the Danks Street South Precinct.  

Festival of Urbanism:  Open Field Agency14 September 2025
Preview with Heidi and Hugo (MAPA) 



Announcing 2026 Placeholder Residencies 

Congratulations Make or Break (Connie Anthes and Bec Gallo), Ellen Ferrier and Mara Schwerdtfeger!

Make or Break will explore the pragmatic and poetic possibilities of un-making electronic waste, collectively developing new rituals and recipes for these materials and our relationship to digital devices.

Ellen Ferrier will facilitate community exploration of regenerative biomaterials from the detritus of the Waterloo building site and its immediate surrounds by inviting people to forage, sort, grind, soak, cook and combine materials.

Mara Schwerdtfeger will investigate noise in relation to how we construct environments. A modular sound system collectively built from recycled materials will invite a series of listening events loss of culture and knowledge as it is continuously buried under construction and machinery.







Images left to right: Make or Break, photographer Dean Tirkot.  Ellen Ferrier. Mara Schwerdtfeger photographer Zoe Baumgartner.


Open


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 country. They are small spaces to dream big, to incrementally build publicness of a site long locked away.













Open Call!



Residency Details

Funded residencies whose practices engage with regenerative practice, care, public space. 

Cost. FREE! 
Payment for your work: $4,000 
Duration: 4 months 
Access: 24/7 
Where: 921 Bourke Street, Waterloo (entrance off Young Street)

Selection Criteria

1. A commitment to testing new ideas and ways of working within regenerative practice, repair, reuse and circularity. 
2. A commitment to inclusive socially and/or spatially-based practice. 
3. A clear plan and method for inviting people into your practice and process. For example through public workshops, talks, events, performances etc.


Applications have now closed. Thank you to all applicants! The 2027 round will open in August 2026.  




Questions? 
Get in touch with curator of the Field Rooms





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About

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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  MAPA Art + Architecture (Hugo Moline and Heidi Axelsen)  and funded by developer contributions to public art for the Danks Street South Precinct in Waterloo, NSW, Australia.

 

More +


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 who are being displaced? 
• 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 and Public Domain Strategy


 

Supporters + Partners





A big heartfelt thanks to all the people who contributed to the development of this project. It began in 2016 when the City of Sydney invited high level concepts for public art in the Danks Street South Precinct.

We would like to extend our deep thanks to all the individuals who took the time to meet with us and share their knowledge, stories, ideas and understanding of this place and for whom it is special and important place. We would like to thank all those who spoke with us and helped us define the program and infrastructure of the Open Field Agency Residency.

Thank you to the design team, City of Sydney staff and developers who have supported our durational approach to public art and supported the communities vision to make this place a special, inclusive and truly public place.

We would also like to thank the following organisations who have contributed to the project.

107 projects, Artbank, Bangawarra , Counterpoint Connect , City of Sydney staff, City West Housing, DASCO , Inner Sydney Voice, Friendship Bridge, Future Method, Kepos St Community Centre, National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, Redfern Community Centre, We Live Here, WEAVE, Wyanga Elders, Yui Ming Temple, Urban Art Projects, University of Newcastle.


The delivery of the project is funded by DASCO and the City of Sydney .











 









Contact





Interested to learn more? Got an idea?

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