Frogging the Waterfront: The Role of Artistic Ritual in Built Environment Climate Adaptation

Abstract

This article examines the neglected role of artistic ritual in built environment climate adaptation, using the knitting metaphor of “frogging” (the deliberate unravelling of existing work) to explore processes of unmaking and remaking socio-ecological relationships. Based on a five-day participatory art installation, I’m Y(e)arning For Something, at The Performance Arcade in Aotearoa New Zealand, we analyze how creative, ritualized encounters surfaced affective responses to climate change that are often overlooked in formal planning processes. Ethnographic observations and conversations with participants revealed how grief, nostalgia, and loss aversion can shape resistance to urban transitions, delaying or preventing managed retreat from increasingly vulnerable infrastructure. The article shows how artistic ritual can create temporary spaces in which communities acknowledge, process, and symbolically release attachments to unsustainable places. It argues that embedding ritualized, participatory art practices into adaptation planning could strengthen community readiness for transformational change and improve the social legitimacy of difficult decisions. We conclude that artistic ritual constitutes a low‑cost but powerful cultural technology for crossing the emotional thresholds of climate adaptation.