SW_001 Full Foam Rinse and Spin (30 August 2025)
Full Foam Rinse and Spin introduced softwash as an artist-run anomaly shaped by temporary conditions, playful ideas and experimental live art. Full Foam Rinse and Spin embraced the project’s carwash-origin story through foamy, funfair-like activations along the creek’s muddy edges. Performances, installations, sound, writing and a BBQ Boat experience invited curiosity about public space, waterways and how we come together.
Featured artists: Mark Cora, Sarah Poulgrain, Artist Boardriders Club, Adrienne Kenafake Holiday Maker (Andrew Hodges & Sean McMeekin), Julie McLaren and Lewis.
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softwash was an artist-led program of experimental, site-responsive live art presented on Bundjalung Country | Tweed Heads. Across three free events, softwash reimagined the public parklands at the Tweed Regional Museum Learning Site as a place for artists and community to gather, share and make meaning together.
This program was assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, made possible with auspicing from The FARM, development support from City of Gold Coast, and venue support from Tweed Regional Museum and Arts Northern Rivers.
SW001 photography by Ellamay Fitzgerald.
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Holiday Maker A JOURNEY TO THE EDGE OF MANGROVE ISLAND
Participants began their journey by checking in at Holiday Maker Tours HQ, moored within the weathered timbers of Boyd’s Shed, where the waves of Mudcrab FM drift through the air and you can explore the paraphernalia and infomercials inside. They awaited the Mystic Mudcrab upon the Pacific Pier, and were carried on a voyage to the edge of Mangrove Island, where they experienced a passage of transformation crossing into the world of the mud crab.
Mud Crab FM is by Holiday Maker Family.
Mud Crab Head supported by Grace Herbert and Misha Hardwick.
Holiday Maker is an artist-run record label formed in a caravan in the Gold Coast Hinterland in 2020 by friends Andrew Hodges & Sean McMeekin. The label enables the preservation and creation of cultural artefacts and experiences – mostly in the form of archival and contemporary music on physical and digital formats, alongside the curation of tours and events with a focus on concept-driven multi-arts formats. A kinship with nature permeates much of the label's eclectic catalogue and roster. The label also operates a collaborative archival studio named Studio Mimi which digitises and broadcasts historic recordings from SE Asia and beyond via the Radio Nanyang platform.
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Artist Boardriders Club (ABC) Thou Shalt Get Pitted (Green Cathedral) 2025
Milk crates, cables ties, sand bags, Spooky thruster, snapped DICE log, beach/surf towels, surfboard bags, detritus, posters, tape, voicemail
Thou Shalt Get Pitted (Green Cathedral) explored wave riding and spirituality through a matrix of surfing sins and lost waves…and on the seventh day Simon Anderson created the thruster.
Hailing from Queensland’s Gold Coast, the Artist Boardriders Club (ABC) surf and make art on the fringes of the 8th World Surfing Reserve, a 16km stretch of coastline from Burleigh Point in the north to Snapper Rocks on the Queensland/New South Wales border and all the breaks in between. The ABC have exhibited at Urbn Surf, Flotsam Festival, Outer Space, Metro Arts, The Walls and Maverick Artspace, and host social surf meet-ups throughout the year. Counter to localism, their motto is ‘No Postcode’, preferring to surf and make art nomadically.
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Julie McLaren Grief Moves like the Tide
‘To look at the sea is to become what one is.’ – Etel Adnan
Grief moves like the tide – its rhythmic pulse shaping the edges of our being. In an age of permacrisis, we drift through uncertain waters, our mourning tangled in the ghost nets of everyday life. We need more than a map – we need a guidebook for moving through the wreckage with presence and care.
Julie McLaren (she/her) is a curator and art historian whose practice centres on storytelling and critical engagement with sociopolitical discourse. Drawing on a foundation in museums and archives, her work in the public gallery sector has resulted in dozens of exhibitions from historical surveys, through to contemporary projects featuring emerging and established artists. Her curatorial approach is informed by deep listening, generous collaboration, and a commitment to cultivating strong, trusting relationships with artists and communities. Grounded in feminist theory, her practice embraces a transhistorical approach; holding conversations across time, unravelling linear stories, and inviting viewers into layered, resonant worlds.
READ Grief Moves Like the Tide
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Mark Cora Welcome to Country
Mark welcomed us to Country with a smoking and shared the layered stories and histories of this place. His installation of Wind Dancers, made from hemp string, layered cane (rainforest vine), acrylic paint, and Emu feathers, speaks to the cyclical nature of seasons and time.
Mark Cora is a proud Minjungbal man, artist and cultural educator. His art pieces represent his Country which takes in the mountains, rainforests, the beach, and its shoreline. He is inspired by natural materials, their shapes and energy, igniting his imagination and that of the onlookers. Mark makes art about natural systems that occur in particular seasons to remind viewers of nature’s workings and how our involvement with the environment contributes to the ongoing workings of these systems or the destruction of these systems.
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Lewis Workshop: Stubborn Stains
Stubborn Stains Friendship Club was an anti-colonial space for friendship, conversation, and crafting revolutions with our hearts and hands. Together, we shared stories of being visible and invisible while making balaclavas from repurposed materials.
Lewis is a Queensland artist whose practice is rooted in punk ethos, friendship, and community care. Their work embraces the DIY spirit – rejecting hierarchy, championing collective action, and cultivating spaces where art functions as a social bond.
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Adrienne Kenafake Big SCRUB
Big SCRUB was an outdoor beauty day spa but forget the glow up – a place to slow up before you blow up. In the spa participants were invited to remove their footwear, take a seat, relax and have their souls re-invigorated. Choose from the special menu. Soak your tired feet in the therapeutic power of the extracted landscape. Big Scrub is a window of time. A moment to immerse in the cosmic and geologic essence of the Tweed region collected specifically for your instant relief. Take part in conversations about place and change while you soak.
Adrienne Kenafake is a multi-disciplinary artist living on Bundjalung Country, Northern NSW. In 2014 she exhibited her first solo show, Gutter Gold: Something from Nothing at the Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah and has since continued to exhibit locally and interstate with her most recent body of work Hold Tight, showing at Elevator ARI Lismore NSW, in May 2025. Notable performance works include Irregular Structures, at The Midland Junction Art Centre in Perth 2019, Meet Patty, a collaborative work at Home of The Arts Gold Coast in 2019 and Ruminant, a solo performance on the opening night of Cementa Festival in Kandos 2024.
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Sarah Poulgrain Weaving Work, Blanket Library
For softwash, I recycled a semi-destroyed woven material from when I was learning how to use a jack loom in 2019. I learnt from Alleyne at the Auchenflower Spinners and Weavers association and had production help from Anya Swan and James Barth. At the base of the work are several picnic blankets – for softwash attendees to use! I was hoping to make something that addressed the political heaviness of the flagpole, with something that would practically benefit the people visiting the park.
Sarah Poulgrain’s practice draws on self-sustainability and artist-led pedagogy to expand what art institutions can do. Though they produce sculptures, their practice is primarily concerned with building and sustaining respectful and non-hierarchical relationships. Poulgrain’s methodology often takes the form of learning a new skill (usually through interest-specific community groups), documenting the process, and re-teaching the skill to others. Their practice aims to facilitate a model of knowledge sharing that disrupts power dynamics and prioritises vulnerability and trust.
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Mark welcomed us to Country with a smoking and shared the layered stories and histories of this place. His installation of Wind Dancers, made from hemp string, layered cane (rainforest vine), acrylic paint, and Emu feathers, speaks to the cyclical nature of seasons and time.
Mark Cora is a proud Minjungbal man, artist and cultural educator. His art pieces represent his Country which takes in the mountains, rainforests, the beach, and its shoreline. He is inspired by natural materials, their shapes and energy, igniting his imagination and that of the onlookers. Mark makes art about natural systems that occur in particular seasons to remind viewers of nature’s workings and how our involvement with the environment contributes to the ongoing workings of these systems or the destruction of these systems.
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Lewis Workshop: Stubborn Stains
Stubborn Stains Friendship Club was an anti-colonial space for friendship, conversation, and crafting revolutions with our hearts and hands. Together, we shared stories of being visible and invisible while making balaclavas from repurposed materials.
Lewis is a Queensland artist whose practice is rooted in punk ethos, friendship, and community care. Their work embraces the DIY spirit – rejecting hierarchy, championing collective action, and cultivating spaces where art functions as a social bond.
︎
Adrienne Kenafake Big SCRUB
Big SCRUB was an outdoor beauty day spa but forget the glow up – a place to slow up before you blow up. In the spa participants were invited to remove their footwear, take a seat, relax and have their souls re-invigorated. Choose from the special menu. Soak your tired feet in the therapeutic power of the extracted landscape. Big Scrub is a window of time. A moment to immerse in the cosmic and geologic essence of the Tweed region collected specifically for your instant relief. Take part in conversations about place and change while you soak.
Adrienne Kenafake is a multi-disciplinary artist living on Bundjalung Country, Northern NSW. In 2014 she exhibited her first solo show, Gutter Gold: Something from Nothing at the Tweed Regional Gallery in Murwillumbah and has since continued to exhibit locally and interstate with her most recent body of work Hold Tight, showing at Elevator ARI Lismore NSW, in May 2025. Notable performance works include Irregular Structures, at The Midland Junction Art Centre in Perth 2019, Meet Patty, a collaborative work at Home of The Arts Gold Coast in 2019 and Ruminant, a solo performance on the opening night of Cementa Festival in Kandos 2024.
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Sarah Poulgrain Weaving Work, Blanket Library
For softwash, I recycled a semi-destroyed woven material from when I was learning how to use a jack loom in 2019. I learnt from Alleyne at the Auchenflower Spinners and Weavers association and had production help from Anya Swan and James Barth. At the base of the work are several picnic blankets – for softwash attendees to use! I was hoping to make something that addressed the political heaviness of the flagpole, with something that would practically benefit the people visiting the park.
Sarah Poulgrain’s practice draws on self-sustainability and artist-led pedagogy to expand what art institutions can do. Though they produce sculptures, their practice is primarily concerned with building and sustaining respectful and non-hierarchical relationships. Poulgrain’s methodology often takes the form of learning a new skill (usually through interest-specific community groups), documenting the process, and re-teaching the skill to others. Their practice aims to facilitate a model of knowledge sharing that disrupts power dynamics and prioritises vulnerability and trust.
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