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Three months after vandals ripped off the public toilet door at Leigh Wharf, locals resorted to a novel DIY solution to restore users’ modesty over Auckland Anniversary Weekend.
While residents and visitors waited in vain for Auckland Council to repair the door, artist Hillary Austin decided some creative yarn bombing and upcycling could be employed as a temporary stopgap. The
Foundation Gallery & Arts Hub founder took an old door frame, some lengths of knitted scarf, a plastic milk carton and some hinges and soon had the yawning toilet door gap artistically covered. Austin said she decided to deploy the knitted door when it became clear that residents’ reports to council were getting nowhere.
“It has caused many local feathers to be ruffled and many formal complaints were made to council to get a new door replacement,” she said. “It just had tape across the access, so I decided to hang a knitted door as a fun temporary measure.”
The woollen water closet door panels were borrowed from Snugleigh, Austin’s long-term project to knit an enormous community scarf, which was started more than two years ago and is now several hundred metres long.
“It has certainly created a fun topic of conversation in the community and who knew Foundation was much more able to act than council?” she said. “It was a fun, much-loved knitting bomb that was also a nod to our Snugleigh scarf project.”
Austin said the knitted door survived the long weekend without being vandalised, though she did have to employ a few more staples to help it stay put.
Speaking on January 31, Auckland Council’s Rodney area manager for parks and community facilities, Geoff Pitman, said the delay in replacing the loo door was due to a “system error”.
“Due to an Auckland Council system error and some staff being on leave, there was a delay in the door at the public toilets in Leigh being replaced,” he admitted.
“We understand the inconvenience this matter may have caused for members of the community and visitors.
“We have corrected the system error that contributed to this delay. We expect the replacement door to be in place this week.”
True to his word, a new door was installed on January 31. Meanwhile, the temporary knitted door was reclaimed by Austin, though only after yet more vandals had thrown it onto rocks at the harbour.
