Wild Dunedin, the New Zealand Festival of Nature, commissioned environmental artists Philippa Jones and Martin Hill, of Wanaka, to create the 25m-diameter sculpture at the beach at Lawyers Head, and enlisted about 10 volunteers to help carry out the work.
Driftwood, kelp, and other material found at the beach were used to create a temporary circle of natural material in a 2.5m band.
By 5pm the waves were already washing it away.
"One of the, what people might think are, the magic things that we do is that there are no footprints in the area we are working in," Jones said. "That was one of the special things today, to explain to people where to walk so their footsteps would not show in the big circle."
Hill said one of the reasons the artists considered their work "ephemeral" was because the materials went back to where they came from.
The footage will form part of the artists’ talk at the Otago Museum this afternoon.
Wild Dunedin runs until April 28.
