COSMIC USEFULNESS (29 July – 12 August 2023) is a set of conditions for participating in the future. Collaboratively, Grace Dewar and Laurie Oxenford as PUBLIC PALACE, assemble temporary arrangements of their *cosmic objects*. This way of working persists as long-form discourse on labour, friendship, social practice and collaborative risk-taking.

Their process is driven by a shared interest in navigating space with desire instead of function. Developed in response to the everyday, COSMIC USEFULNESS prompts, reorients and encourages working with what already exists as an answer to the production paradigm.

Acts of resourcefulness and reciprocity offer gentle yet urgent speculation towards reorganised value systems, with a particular focus on material perception. Shifting between performing everyday routines and constructing situations of surprise, this series of new material and relational experiments are attempts at a renewed social communion.

This project was presented at Elevator ARI and developed with support from Placemakers* Gold Coast’s INCUBATE Residency Program.

Public Palace acknowledge the Widjabul Wy-abul people of Bundjalung nation and the people of the Yugambeh Language Region. *COSMIC USEFULNESS* was developed on stolen Bundjalung and Kombumerri Country. 

Photography: Fabian Pertzel, Laurie Oxenford. & Grace Dewar.