Conversation Park – A Public Space Game is a work of community art that was created by 21 Rauma residents of different ages. In the project, they planned and built a public park. The game was played in the summers of 2019 and 2020 in six moves. The park is located in Rauma at Kalliokatu 28–30.
Conversation Park is an action-oriented project that investigates participation, collaboration between different age groups, collective decision making, and public space. The gamelike process began by gathering participants’ ideas for a public park. All players were allotted a piece of land of their own on which to implement their ideas. In the course of the project, five meetings were held where every player received 200 euros to use for the management of their plot. The players were required to spend the money by the next game meeting. After the initial moves in the game, the players began to negotiate and combine their ideas, their allotments and their funds. As the game progressed, so the park changed. In the last meeting, the players received a collective amount of 14,000 euros to finalise the park.
