WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2019
A University of Auckland PhD student who campaigned on the need for a more playful city has been elected to the
Waitematā Local Board in this year’s local body recent elections, winning the highest number of the votes on that board.
Alex Bonham could be described as an activist for urban play, an “art-ivist”, although it was only recently that she
considered getting directly involved with local government.
She is studying her PhD through the School of Dance. She isn’t dancer, although she is a trained actor and theatre
maker. She has a BA (Hons) in law and Masters in Drama and builds on both for her PhD topic, “How May a Playful Practice
Co-produce the Playful City”.
Alex draws an analogy between the play in a theatrical context — a fixed structure which allows for interpretation by
actors and directors — and the legislative framework of a city, which also allows for people to add to or recreate their
urban environment.
Her aim (in both her thesis, and as Board member) is to find ways to encourage people to collectively create a more
playful city, one that has spaces conducive to a variety of experiences, that allow for the possibility of human
encounters and surprise.
For the last five years she been a guide with Auckland Free Walking Tours, in which she has used maps, storytelling, and
a sense of drama, to evoke and promote the city as a place that is “layered, fluid, joyous, and risky”.
She continued to do so for her thesis which has involved ‘finding the city’ by walking through it, researching its
stories, exploring it through our senses of smell, sound, texture et al. “It’s about drawing people's attention to the
city, its geographies and histories and current dramas, its Works in Progress, its smells, its textures.
“When you spend time engaging in a place, learning how it works, how it came to be, how things change, and when you
start making propositions for changes you find other people want the same things.
“So it wasn't an enormous step to consider standing for the local board of Waitematā. I’m taking a theatrical mindset to
new urbanism with the goal to create an all age-friendly city that works for children, youth, parents, seniors, for
people’s whole lives not just work lives,” she says.
Much of her thesis has involved creating maps that represent Auckland from different perspectives. She has also curated
an exhibition opening at Auckland Central City Library, which runs until 13 November, called Auckland and the Meaningful
Map.
The exhibition is a portrayal of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland as created by mapmakers with different perspectives, each
creating distinctive and unique impressions of the same landscape.
Visitors to the exhibition can collaborate in the creative mapping resistance by drawing their own maps, adding their
perspectives on the city, the places that allow for “chance encounters, thrills and adventures, safe havens, that
glorious dreams that have made this city what it is”, says Alex.
We are all actors in the creation of the city, she says. “The PhD gives me the opportunity to adopt a phenomenological
methodology to consider a playful aesthetic of leadership, as a way to shape the playful city,” she says.
“It is a terrific opportunity to have the chance to contribute to the planning of tangible urban frameworks from a
position of political power, to give people more opportunities to participate in the life of the city both economically
and recreationally.
“As we move to a city centre with fewer private gardens, people should know that they are allowed to enjoy and use
shared spaces in ways that appeal to them. We need to think about joy and quality of life in our city. We have the right
to play, she says. “Engaging in a playful practice has opened up my mind to myriad possibilities. Play is an
ever-interesting line of research.”
ends