PUBLIC PALACE: PLATFORM ARTS DIGITAL RESIDENCY 2022 

PLATFORM ARTS
GEELONG / KULIN NATION
2022

Public Palace is a cooperative of artists exploring the social, critical and material potentials of public space. Interested in collaboration across spatial practices, Public Palace invites the intersection of ideas via experimental projects and critical discussion. Together they exist to negate the culture of competition and encourage active participation in our cities. Countering the history of the ‘palace’ as an elitist institution, through anti-hierarchical processes, sustainable practices and non-commercial outcomes, Public Palace seeks to co-author transformative, place-based art experiences.

Laurie Oxenford and Grace Dewar’s collaborative practice considers the critical thresholds and potentials of public space. Their site-specific and durational projects are approached with a shared spatial aesthetic that is inherently concerned with process, performance and conceptual art practices. Often realised via psycho-geography and social practice, they respond to site and situation as part of the work. With an interdisciplinary approach, they navigate shared interests in material hierarchies, value and chance as principles for developing critical dialogue.

Through LAB, Public Palace will unpack the precarious nature of using everyday objects, actions/interactions and spaces/sites as artwork, and the challenges this methodology presents for audiences, institutions and the commercial parameters of our sector.

In a post-pandemic environment where public space and community connection has a heightened sense of importance, Public Palace makes interactive, provocative and challenging work that contributes to the expanding field of new-genre public art. Through various action-led projects, attempts are made to reveal the ‘true’ labour and process of artistic production.