Tombstones sprang up in the grass below a stony-faced Robbie Burns, to the bemusement of lunchtime shoppers.
The epitaphs tell the stories of fictitious Otago pilgrims, such as Jock McGillicuddy, "mawld by a seal whylst he slept at Aramoana Spit'' in 1871.
Equally unfortunate were Dominique Boyet, who drowned in Lake Logan (now Logan Park) in 1892, Jimmy Knowles ("executed in 1864'') and Algernon Olsen ("Brutally murdered by a Chinese miscreant'') in 1864.
Hamilton artist Graeme Cairns installed the polystyrene gravestones for his Fringe Festival exhibition, "Grave Era''.
"The Octagon looks like the sort of place you'd have a cemetery. It works rather well here, I think,'' Cairns said yesterday.
"I researched quite a bit of local social history to maintain authenticity, and a street cleaner has just told me that there is actually a cemetery nearby,'' he said.
"I believe they're going to take off as a garden ornament, actually. You can put them on your lawn as a statement of veneration for a dead relative, but with the convenience of being able to take them with you if you move house".
Mr Cairns says the gravestones will be installed in Te Papa following the Fringe Festival.
But you sense he's lost the plot.
Comedy takes centre stage in the Fringe tonight, with the premiere of the Richard Meros satire On the Conditions and Possibilities of Helen Clark Taking Me as her Young Lover in the Hutton Theatre at 7pm.
"It's based on the philosophical treatise that Helen Clark would take a young performer as her concubine,'' director Geoff Pinfield said yesterday.
"It's a direct result of the psychological effects of putting up with 20 years of Rogernomics as the soundtrack to our lives".
Performer Arthur Meek is best-known for his award-winning 2002 short film Being John Campbell.
Mark Slater-Venning's tales of Dunedin life, We're All In This Together, opens in the Fringe Lounge at 7pm, while international fringe performer and former Dunedinite Jeremy Elwood will make his Dunedin Fringe debut with 12 Steps in the Hutton Theatre at 8.30pm, followed by Ben Hurley's Boom! in the same theatre at 10pm.
The Lonesome Buckwhips' Charity Gala in the Fringe Lounge at 9pm also promises to be a hoot, as the group, which promotes itself as "Dunedin's finest family band'', sets aside family differences for a week of "old favourites and banned material''.
Auckland artist Rose Rowan will be chanting pop mantras while performing her beautification ritual in Luxury and Delusion in the Fringe Lounge at 10pm.
The second Festival Forum, "Arts and Business: Real Artists do it for Love and Passion, not Money'', continues to examine contemporary art issues in Allen Hall at 6pm.
Keep an eye out for busker Slim Pickens and Feelin' Feline, prowling the city streets between 6pm and 8pm.
