Space to Play and Playing the Space: How may playful practices co-produce the playful city?

Abstract

This thesis uses arts research methodologies to explore the role of playful practices in the co-production of the playful city. It imagines what an inclusive play-full city might look like and why it might be desirable to aim for this in a world facing significant social and environmental challenges. Drawing on my diverse roles as a walking tour guide, community mapmaker, theatre-maker, local body politician and researcher I consider how a playful dialogic practice that cues discourses around socio-spatial relationships (Lefebvre, 1991) might have made an impact on urban production and policymaking in Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau (‘“the land coveted by many’”) between 2017 and 2022. My key practices are walking tours, counter-mapping, placemaking and legislative theatre, drawing on the model of Augusto Boal. The significance of this research is to centre the role of the play-cultivating artist in urban planning. It weaves theories of play from urban planning, psychology, participatory democracy, and performance theory into a dialogic applied theatre practice as research. It makes the case for encouraging government, organisations, communities and system designers to consider the value of play for all ages and harness the qualities of play, games and the idea of the infinite game (Carse, 2012; Harré, 2018) in their processes. Aspects of play that could be incorporated into strategies to support creative thinking, group formation and resilience include flexibility, agency, laughter, fun, storytelling, risk-taking, imaginaries, simulation, experience-sharing, friend-making and group problem-solving. This research might to some seem to offer sweeteners that make unpalatable urban decision-making palatable. The intention is to empower and centre urban citizens and future generations, as players, who co-author the future of their city, and to raise expectations as to what the city can be and how people might play (an enjoyable) role in co-creating it. To this end this research proposes some models of how the playful city might be co-created and suggests avenues for further research.