OBJECTS AS SOCIAL PRACTICE (OASP) was a situation-led collaborative project by Laurie Oxenford and Grace Dewar. Navigating a shared aesthetic through found objects, OASP prioritised intuitive acts of selection, chance and interaction as a way to understand personal desires and to interrogate the everyday.
Developed over a two-week residency at The Field ARI, Murwillumbah (15-28 February 2021), OASP considered shared actions as ‘attempts’. This structure positioned all outcomes as valid and allowed for continuous experimentation. Taking its departure from Robert Morris’ process work ‘Continuous Project Altered Daily’ 1969, OASP was regularly rearranged and documented, with objects repeatedly introduced and removed; often adapted in response to the previous iteration. In this way, the work restructured the potentials of curation and offered the duo deeper relations to the objects and space.
Framing their work as new genre spatial practice, OASP borrowed methodologies from other urban practices such as construction, architecture, graffiti and interventionism to engage with existing structures in new ways. OASP engaged chance through quasi-performative actions of resource recovery (object selection) and curation (object installation). Objects are reclaimed from the urban environment i.e. waste recycling centres, a motel clearance sale, abandoned sites. The selection process considers aesthetics, the value embedded in objects and how we experience public space. OASP offered different ways of being, seeing and understanding the world to challenge hegemonic ideologies; encouraging an unlearning of passive participation and welcoming small acts of resistance.
‘OASP’ 2021, 5:36, one channel video
Shot: Kirsty Lee, Laurie Oxenford & Grace Dewar (additional footage by Mitch Schultz) / Cut: Kirsty Lee
Developed over a two-week residency at The Field ARI, Murwillumbah (15-28 February 2021), OASP considered shared actions as ‘attempts’. This structure positioned all outcomes as valid and allowed for continuous experimentation. Taking its departure from Robert Morris’ process work ‘Continuous Project Altered Daily’ 1969, OASP was regularly rearranged and documented, with objects repeatedly introduced and removed; often adapted in response to the previous iteration. In this way, the work restructured the potentials of curation and offered the duo deeper relations to the objects and space.
Framing their work as new genre spatial practice, OASP borrowed methodologies from other urban practices such as construction, architecture, graffiti and interventionism to engage with existing structures in new ways. OASP engaged chance through quasi-performative actions of resource recovery (object selection) and curation (object installation). Objects are reclaimed from the urban environment i.e. waste recycling centres, a motel clearance sale, abandoned sites. The selection process considers aesthetics, the value embedded in objects and how we experience public space. OASP offered different ways of being, seeing and understanding the world to challenge hegemonic ideologies; encouraging an unlearning of passive participation and welcoming small acts of resistance.
‘OASP’ 2021, 5:36, one channel video
Shot: Kirsty Lee, Laurie Oxenford & Grace Dewar (additional footage by Mitch Schultz) / Cut: Kirsty Lee
Photography –