In 2013, Belfast sculptor Brendan Jamison used 500,000 sugar cubes and help from more than 5,000 visitors to build a miniature city that stayed on view into 2014

In 2013, Belfast sculptor Brendan Jamison did something that probably only a few people attempted. He asked complete strangers to help him build a miniature city, one block at a time, using only sugar and glue. According to Jamison's own project archive, more than 5,000 people spent over four weeks in late 2013 creating a sprawling 'city of the future' at Belfast's Ulster Museum out of 500,000 sugar cubes. It turned into one of the largest hands-on art projects that Northern Ireland has ever seen, with no professional construction contractors, architects, or engineers involved, just artists and volunteers working with their hands.

How was the sugar city built

The project was called Sugar Metropolis and was exhibited at the Ulster Museum in Belfast as part of the 132nd Annual Exhibition of the Royal Ulster Academy of Arts. Between 18 October and 17 November 2013, all visitors to the museum were invited to help build the city. Jamison collaborated with four other sculptors, Lydia Holmes, Mark Revels, Mary McCaffrey and David Turner, who alternated with visitors to demonstrate how to stack and glue the cubes into stable structures. The project was supported by KPMG, Arts and Business N.I and Belfast City Council. Over four weeks, more than 5,000 people helped build a "city of the future" out of 500,000 sugar cubes, figures published on Jamison's own studio archive said; the finished work measured 180 by 900 by 700 centimeters and was on public display in the museum until January 5, 2014.

Why building together felt so satisfying

There is a reason that a project created by strangers, with something as simple as sugar cubes, can draw a crowd instead of feeling like clutter. A study into arts participation titled ‘Relationships between arts participation, social cohesion, and well-being: an integrative review of evidence’ has shown that community arts projects often foster genuine social bonds between people, and this sense of connection can lead to better overall well-being. It seems that working with strangers toward a common physical goal can create a sort of fast-forming community that pure sightseeing alone cannot.

The final cityscape also appeared more inventive than a single architect’s design might have been. Groups usually come up with a greater diversity of creative solutions than individuals working independently, for everyone has his or her own concept of how a building or a street should be designed. According to the research on collective creativity published in the Journal of Management, such collaborative processes, which are open and have low-barrier collaboration where anyone can contribute without formal training, are likely to create something that feels more original and less predictable than work planned from the top down. The same collaborative effect was visible in Belfast. The mix of styles gave the cityscape its distinctive look, combining skyscrapers and fantasy castles linked by bridges.

The city spanned the ocean

Jamison later took the idea beyond Belfast. In 2014, Jamison and Revels followed up with another project called New York Sugar Metropolis, funded in part through a Kickstarter campaign, which built a new sugar cube city on a similar scale in Harlem's Sugar Hill neighborhood. The Harlem build went on through the summer of 2014, once again asking for volunteers, sculptors, and passersby to add their own buildings to the skyline.

A sweet legacy that stands the test of time

More than a decade later, Jamison’s sugar cities remain some of the strangest entries in the participatory art world. It didn’t take a big budget or professional training to do it. They needed sugar cubes and glue and people who would come and build something with their hands. That combination turned a regular museum floor into a little glittering metropolis that belonged to all who walked on it. The project suggests that not all memorable art springs from a single vision. Sometimes it can be the sum of thousands of little, imperfect choices, one cube at a time.