'Arty student' owns up to prank

The blue slide which was one of the artist's mysterious installations. Photo by Clive Copeman
The blue slide which was one of the artist's mysterious installations. Photo by Clive Copeman
Someone has claimed responsibility for Dunedin's guerrilla art installations - although the exact meaning remains a mystery.

The Otago Daily Times received an email yesterday from a person claiming to have installed the park bench that appeared in Bond St last month.

The writer, signing the email "arty-looking student in his mid-twenties", came forward after publicity surrounding the more recent appearance of a blue seesaw cemented into a Dunedin City Council car park.

The seesaw appeared last weekend and a reader later reported sighting an "arty" male student, in his mid-20s, carrying the seesaw down Vogel St earlier on Friday.

The email received yesterday claimed the earlier park bench installation had been placed in Bond St on September 6.

The writer claimed the location was part of pre-reclamation tidal flats and significant to local Maori, and the bench was provided to allow "contemplation of another history and of Dunedin's future".

Readers also reported the arrival of a blue slide on a roundabout on the Thomas Burns St side of the Dunedin Railway Station.

However, the writer - using an anonymous email address - did not respond to ODT questions yesterday seeking clarification, and warned against trying to read too much into the message behind the work.

"I hope this letter provides an amount of resolution to your queries. Do not look for meanings in my actions, though. You will not find them, you will only create them."

- chris.morris@odt.co.nz

 

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