City Planners 2023

A city rebuild in clay. Public input requested, not necessarily adhered to.

Ōtepoti | Dunedin

The city planners are a team of bureaucrats employed by some unnamed local authority and charged with a city rebuild over the course of the week. Progress will be dictated by an ever-changing set of rules governing city development and interrupted by regular committee meetings, as we negotiate the demands of the public and elected officials.

The public will be invited to do some paperwork to foster their dreams and demands. Public consultation will encourage audience involvement, although we make no promises on delivery. Ideas can be as fanciful or as practical as people like, but be aware that not all of them will pass our team of officials. Those ideas that do survive may become distorted as they pass the various rigours and rules around planning. The public will also be invited to create a small clay self portrait to be placed somewhere in the city.

The city will be built out of local wild clay to facilitate fast and flexible building and to celebrate the historic importance of the red clay bricks used in many of the beautiful historic buildings in Dunedin.

The event will be an ongoing and growing installation as the week progresses.