Pop-up publics: Temporary publicness at the Auckland Night Markets

Abstract

The increasing significance of temporary urban initiatives—like community gardens, markets, festivals and artistic ventures—raises questions about their role in the public life and “publicness” of cities. In dialogue with normative and alternative literature on public space, we examine how temporary urbanism is implicated in the production of publicness. Through examining the Auckland Night Markets in New Zealand, we discuss how these events produce publicness through (a) the people that attend them and their experiences, (b) control practices and (c) their spatial configuration. Our discussion lends support to emerging accounts of public space and publicness as pluralistic and dynamic.