Windows of Imagination: 179 Young Artists Open a Window Into Auckland’s Soul.
Interview by Paul Marshall
What happens when you take the imagination of 179 children, add a little creative magic, and transform their artwork into a giant animated projection on the streets of Auckland? You get Windows of Imagination, a celebration of creativity, community and the wonderfully unpredictable ways children see the world around them.
There’s something special about seeing a city through the eyes of its youngest inhabitants. Children have a knack for finding stories in the everyday, turning ordinary objects into extraordinary adventures and seeing possibilities where adults might see limitations. Give them a pencil, some paper and the freedom to create, and you never quite know what you’re going to get.
Now imagine taking 179 of those individual creations and bringing them together in one large-scale animated artwork. That’s the idea behind Windows of Imagination, a project that transforms the drawings of local tamariki into a colourful, moving celebration of life in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.
As part of this creative undertaking, I caught up with Lakshman Anandanayagam, the project's Creative Director, to discuss the challenge of bringing so many young imaginations to life, the importance of representing Auckland’s cultural diversity, and how art can help us see the familiar world around us through an entirely different lens.
A window into a thousand little stories
The title Windows of Imagination immediately conjures up images of discovery. Windows allow us to look beyond our own immediate surroundings, offering glimpses into other worlds, other lives and different ways of seeing things.
Interestingly, Lakshman is quick to credit Nolwenn from Auckland Live for coming up with the title, acknowledging the valuable input and collaborative spirit she brought to the project.
But the name does more than simply describe the artwork. It captures the experience the team hopes to create for people standing in front of the projection.
“We hope that they feel a little bit transported, with a superpower-like ability to see into the many lives that are going on all around us,” Lakshman explains.
That’s a wonderful way of putting it. Imagine being able to look through multiple windows into the lives of others, discovering their individual interests, experiences and dreams while recognising the things that connect us all.
In a world where people can become caught up in their own routines, there’s something quietly powerful about being reminded that everyone around us has a story of their own.
“In seeing across these slices of life, we hope they are reminded of the beautiful differences and undeniable similarities we all share.”
And that, really, is the heart of the project. These aren't simply drawings displayed on a wall. They are fragments of imagination, each offering a glimpse into how a young person interprets the world around them.
179 artworks, 179 different perspectives
Working with 179 individual artworks must have been a fascinating creative exercise. Each drawing began as its own independent expression, shaped by the imagination, experiences and artistic instincts of the child who created it.
The challenge was to bring those pieces together without losing the individuality that made each one interesting in the first place.
Lakshman noticed some recurring themes along the way, including one that feels particularly appropriate given the connection with Auckland's rail infrastructure.
“Trains were certainly a common theme,” he says, while also noticing similarities in the artistic styles produced by different class groups.
It’s an intriguing detail. Trains might be an obvious subject in a project connected to Auckland's City Rail Link, but their appearance in the children's artwork also offers a glimpse into the things that capture young imaginations.
For some children, a train might represent adventure or travel. For others, it might simply be a familiar part of their everyday environment. The same subject can inspire completely different interpretations, depending on the person holding the pencil.
And while Lakshman noticed similarities between some groups of students, the larger collection provided a broad range of ideas, visual styles and little narratives.
The challenge was never simply to make everything look the same. It was to find a way for these different creative voices to coexist within one larger work.
From the page to a living, breathing world
Taking children's drawings and transforming them into a large-scale animated projection presents an interesting creative dilemma.
How much should the artist responsible for the final installation add to the original work? How do you introduce movement, structure and visual storytelling without taking away the innocence and individuality that made the drawings special in the first place?
For Lakshman, it was one of the project's most rewarding challenges.
“It was a really interesting creative challenge, and I really enjoyed coming up with a solution that satisfied all of the requirements,” he explains.
The solution was a cross-sectional diorama approach, allowing the team to present a large number of the children's artworks within a larger visual environment.
Think of a building viewed from the side, with its rooms and interiors exposed like a miniature stage set. Instead of looking at a single flat surface, the audience is invited to explore different spaces and the stories unfolding within them.
This approach gives the individual artworks a place within a shared setting while allowing them to retain their own identities.
The overall narrative centres on an apartment building, an everyday environment that provides a natural connection between the artwork and the lives people lead around the city.
Across 14 picture frames incorporated into the piece, the original artworks gradually change, creating an evolving visual experience.
As Lakshman explains, the approach serves two purposes: it creates a cohesive narrative while also highlighting the role art can play in people's daily lives.
It's a clever way to tackle the challenge of scale. Rather than presenting 179 drawings as a static collection, the installation gives them a framework in which they can interact, change and contribute to a larger story.
Learning from the imagination of children
One of the most interesting questions I put to Lakshman was whether working with the tamariki had changed his own creative thinking.
Adults often develop a set of assumptions about how the world works. We learn what is practical, what is possible and what is supposedly beyond the limits of reality. Children, meanwhile, are still discovering those boundaries, which can make their creative thinking wonderfully unpredictable.
Sometimes they see something obvious that adults have overlooked. Other times, they produce an idea that would never have occurred to someone approaching the subject with a more conventional mindset.
Lakshman's answer was an enthusiastic yes.
“Most definitely, there were so many things in all of the artworks that were surprising, creative, interesting, and had their own little narratives,” he says.
He describes the experience as both inspiring and rewarding.
It's an important reminder that creativity isn't a one-way street. While the adults involved in a project might be responsible for shaping its final presentation, the ideas that make it memorable can come from the youngest contributors.
There is also something refreshing about allowing children's work to speak for itself. Their drawings don't need to be judged against professional artistic standards to have value. Their appeal lies partly in their individuality, their unexpected details and the stories they reveal.
By bringing those creations into a public setting, Windows of Imagination gives that youthful perspective a much larger audience.
Art meets Auckland's changing landscape
The project also has a strong connection to Auckland's future.
The original artworks were created during the development of the City Rail Link, one of the city's major infrastructure projects. While the CRL is transforming how people move around Auckland, Windows of Imagination takes a different approach to exploring what makes the city worth living in.
For Lakshman, the attraction was the opportunity to represent the people who live in the central city and celebrate the diversity of the community.
The new CRL stations feature public artworks integrated into and around their environments, creating opportunities for art to become part of the everyday urban experience.
“We feel really privileged to be able to add to the artwork on the station building that will hopefully enrich people's lives a little as they pass by,” he says.
That idea deserves attention. Public art doesn't have to be something people deliberately seek out. It can become part of their daily routine, appearing on the way to work, during a shopping trip or while they're simply passing through the city.
And unlike a gallery exhibition that requires visitors to make a conscious decision to attend, a public projection has the potential to reach people who might not otherwise engage with an art installation.
A commuter might stop out of curiosity. A family might discover it while exploring the city. Someone heading home might find themselves unexpectedly drawn into the stories unfolding across the building.
In those moments, art becomes part of the urban landscape rather than something separated from it.
One building, many voices
Auckland is a city shaped by different cultures, backgrounds, generations and experiences. Its identity isn't defined by a single story, but by the countless individual lives that exist alongside one another.
So does Lakshman see Windows of Imagination as a snapshot of Auckland's collective identity?
He approaches that idea thoughtfully, describing the work as an attempt to represent a portion of the diversity found in central Tāmaki Makaurau.
“We've tried to represent a portion of the beautiful diversity of central Tāmaki Makaurau in this piece,” he says. “I think it's something we should be celebrating every day.”
It's a simple statement, but one that sits comfortably at the centre of the project's purpose.
The artwork brings together the creative expressions of many young people, allowing their individual perspectives to become part of a shared public experience. Each drawing contributes something different, yet the collection creates a larger picture of the community from which it emerged.
That doesn't mean 179 artworks can fully represent an entire city. Rather, they offer a glimpse into some of the experiences and imaginations that make Auckland what it is.
And perhaps that's the beauty of the idea. Instead of trying to define a city through a single image or statement, Windows of Imagination allows many voices to exist together.
There is no need for every drawing to look alike or tell the same story. Their differences are part of what makes the collective work interesting.
Seeing the world through younger eyes
What makes Windows of Imagination appealing is the way it connects several ideas without losing sight of the simple pleasure of looking at art.
There's the technical and creative achievement of transforming 179 individual artworks into a large-scale animated projection. There's the visual storytelling of the apartment-building concept and its 14 changing picture frames. And there's the wider ambition of celebrating Auckland's diversity while giving young artists a place within the city's evolving public spaces.
But beneath all of that is something more personal.
Children draw what catches their attention. They explore ideas, invent stories and find meaning in the people and places around them. When those drawings are brought together, they reveal not just the creativity of individual young artists, but the many different ways a community can see the world.
Lakshman's role has been to find a way to bring those perspectives together, creating a cohesive experience without losing the character of the original works.
It's an approach that recognises something important: art doesn't always need to tell us what to think. Sometimes it simply needs to give us a reason to look a little closer.
And perhaps that's what the title Windows of Imagination captures so well. Each picture offers a glimpse into another person's world, reminding us that the streets we walk, the buildings we pass and the communities we share are full of stories we might otherwise never notice.
For a city undergoing enormous change, it's a timely reminder that infrastructure may shape how we travel, but it's the people who give a place its character.
Through the eyes of 179 young artists, Windows of Imagination invites Auckland to pause, look through the windows and rediscover the extraordinary creativity hiding inside everyday life.