softwash is an artist-led program of live and experimental art, workshops and a reading club presented by PUBLIC PALACE. Hosted on Minjungbal country, where Terranora and Cobaki creeks meet, softwash is reimagining public parklands as a place for artists and community to gather, share and make meaning together.
softwash is committed to softening, presented by artist collective, PUBLIC PALACE — Laurie Oxenford, Grace Dewar and Merinda Davies. Developed from 2022-2025 after consultation with the Gold Coast and wider arts community, softwash foregrounds the informal actions that sit in and around the *main event*: moments of discussion, friendship, sharing and reflection. They value the soft architecture of social structures; specifically how it supports creative development and contributes to a sense of connectedness vital for artists to thrive.
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softwash will take form in 2025 as three separate activations at the Tweed Regional Museum Learning Site on Minjunbal Country.
SW_001 – Full Foam Rinse and Spin | 2–6PM, Saturday 30 August 2025
Full Foam Rinse and Spin is a frothy, fizzing, fun fair born out of temporary conditions and foamy friendship on muddy, salty riverbank. What can be generated with the right conditions? All aboard the BBQ boat!
Featuring: Mark Cora, Sarah Poulgrain, Artist Boardriders Club, Adrienne Kenafake, Holiday Makers, Lewis and Julie McLaren.
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SW_002 – Eating Together | 2–6PM, Saturday 27 September 2025
Eating Together calls on shared languages, systems, rituals, structures and processes to realise the conditions of our continued togetherness on the night of a Waxing Gibbous moon. Offering the provocation of opening borders between people, softwash presents socially-engaged, participatory live artworks that offer new / rebirthed ways of being in relation to each other.
Featuring: Jason King, Betty Russ and Michael Donnelly, Kuweni Dias Mendis, Glenn Barry, Marilena Hewitt, Kyra Togo, Ellamay Fitzgerald and Lora Ward.
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SW_003 – At the Water's Edge | 2–6PM, Saturday 8 November 2025
At the Water's Edge takes us outside to the wet spaces; a multispecies entanglement, a loosening of binary thought, a soaking, leaking, melting of our edges. With a focus on queer ecology and an interest in building practices of interdependence. Tending to connections, between the socio-eco-political in devotion to the practices of listening, caring, queering, and decentralising.
Featuring: Thomas ES Kelly, Norton Fredericks, Tay Haggarty, Ruby Donohue, Anna Whitaker, Kinly Grey and Kimberly Stokes.
Follow softwash on Substack and Instagram.
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This program has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, with auspicing from The FARM, development support from the City of Gold Coast and venue support from Tweed Regional Museum and Arts Northern Rivers.
Photography and design by Marilena Hewitt.
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softwash is committed to softening, presented by artist collective, PUBLIC PALACE — Laurie Oxenford, Grace Dewar and Merinda Davies. Developed from 2022-2025 after consultation with the Gold Coast and wider arts community, softwash foregrounds the informal actions that sit in and around the *main event*: moments of discussion, friendship, sharing and reflection. They value the soft architecture of social structures; specifically how it supports creative development and contributes to a sense of connectedness vital for artists to thrive.
︎
softwash will take form in 2025 as three separate activations at the Tweed Regional Museum Learning Site on Minjunbal Country.
SW_001 – Full Foam Rinse and Spin | 2–6PM, Saturday 30 August 2025
Full Foam Rinse and Spin is a frothy, fizzing, fun fair born out of temporary conditions and foamy friendship on muddy, salty riverbank. What can be generated with the right conditions? All aboard the BBQ boat!
Featuring: Mark Cora, Sarah Poulgrain, Artist Boardriders Club, Adrienne Kenafake, Holiday Makers, Lewis and Julie McLaren.
︎
SW_002 – Eating Together | 2–6PM, Saturday 27 September 2025
Eating Together calls on shared languages, systems, rituals, structures and processes to realise the conditions of our continued togetherness on the night of a Waxing Gibbous moon. Offering the provocation of opening borders between people, softwash presents socially-engaged, participatory live artworks that offer new / rebirthed ways of being in relation to each other.
Featuring: Jason King, Betty Russ and Michael Donnelly, Kuweni Dias Mendis, Glenn Barry, Marilena Hewitt, Kyra Togo, Ellamay Fitzgerald and Lora Ward.
︎
SW_003 – At the Water's Edge | 2–6PM, Saturday 8 November 2025
At the Water's Edge takes us outside to the wet spaces; a multispecies entanglement, a loosening of binary thought, a soaking, leaking, melting of our edges. With a focus on queer ecology and an interest in building practices of interdependence. Tending to connections, between the socio-eco-political in devotion to the practices of listening, caring, queering, and decentralising.
Featuring: Thomas ES Kelly, Norton Fredericks, Tay Haggarty, Ruby Donohue, Anna Whitaker, Kinly Grey and Kimberly Stokes.
Follow softwash on Substack and Instagram.
︎
This program has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, with auspicing from The FARM, development support from the City of Gold Coast and venue support from Tweed Regional Museum and Arts Northern Rivers.
Photography and design by Marilena Hewitt.
