NZ Visual Diary - entry 298

Sundays - Freyberg Square

Public spaces signal that gathering in daily life is both desirable and deliberate, even necessary. They are places of elastic purpose and meaning, and are therefore highly coveted ground.

We congregate in public places, be they squares, plazas, greens or parks, to share with others powerful emotions of celebration, protest and grief; and in doing so we relinquish in the moment an isolated sense of self as we wrap ourselves in the shared fabric of our collective humanity.

Perhaps more mundane but nonetheless important and meaningful, we gather in public places to relax, play, eat and observe one another. We find succour and meaning in these acts, too.

And on Sundays in Auckland’s Freyberg Square the mundane and sublime co-mingle as a community organisation — Sunday Blessings — erects a canopy of compassion on a sacred square by feeding those in need and providing relief services referrals to those down on their luck. True to its motto [Less Talk, More Do], the organisation melds together the two-sided character of public places: shared space imbued with collective purpose, expression and responsibility.