Sculpting their place in the world

City Planners Bronwyn Gayle (left) and Marion Familton admire a clay sculpture of Māori earth mother Papatūānuku who gazes over an imagined clay city of Ōtepoti Dunedin. The City Planners, which also includes Liz Rowe, Locke Unhold, Eva Ding, and Lissie Brown, is a group of ceramic artists who have taken over an empty store on George St to create an evolving art installation.

Familton said members of the public were invited to fill out a form with questions including their "interdimensional name" and "what reality do you prefer". These are then submitted via the "tombola wheel of planning fortune" before being given a rubber stamp. The ideas are then created by the artists and given space on a mini map of the city. People are also encouraged to create clay self portraits to place in the city.

The city is being created out of locally sourced clay, which will be recycled and reused at the end of the installation.

"Getting involved in the actual council planning process can be off-putting for many. It’s time consuming and controlled by a lot of bureaucratic-sounding language, so we are aiming to change all that," Familton said. The installation is a Dunedin Dream Brokerage project, and runs until Saturday.