Patronage
Council Participation
You’ve Walked Past Me So Many Times was a guerrilla public artwork that transformed 100 abandoned road cones, collected over weeks of late-night suburban surveys, into New Zealand’s largest public art installation. Arranged in a staggered grid in Te Komititanga Square around a custom “Come Get Your Cones” sign, each cone carried a QR code linking to patronage.nz, where visitors could trace its origin, update its location, and get return directions via Google Maps.
The installation critiqued traffic management inefficiencies, government bureaucracy, and collective misuse, while offering a practical alternative: a real-time, user-friendly tracking platform for community-driven accountability.
Installed at 3 a.m. in time for Monday commuters, the work was expected to last only until around 6 a.m. Instead, it remained fully intact until midday. When council workers intervened, they restacked the cones into a new formation that stayed in place for another nine hours, unintentionally extending the project and amplifying its critique.
The work drew 10,000 website visits, feature coverage in Stuff, widespread social media engagement, and even an unintentional council collaboration. Entirely self-funded with Hireace sponsorship, the project doubled as an environmental cleanup, removing 100 cones from city streets at zero cost to ratepayers, while igniting a citywide conversation about accountability and public space.
Patronage