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The Home Front - Photographs of Ulster, Galveston and the domestic façade
by Terence Wright 16th Nov - 22 Dec Opening: Thurs 16th Nov, 6pm - 8pm PLACE, 7 - 9 Lower Garfield Street Belfast, BT1 1FP The exhibition contrasts domestic façades from the disparate island locations of Ireland and Galveston. It focuses on the ways people design and organise the fronts of their homes which appear to be regarded not so much as functional spaces but more as areas of public display. Irish Home Fronts become sites of individual and cultural expression, adorned with ornaments that represent the householders’ personal interests. They can suggest a fantasy world where myth and romance feature alongside a nostalgia for an idealised past. In contrast, the dwellings on the island of Galveston reflect the damage and rebuilding following the disasters that accompany hurricanes. Austere frontages incorporate practical measures for disaster avoidance arising from storm surges. The idea behind the comparison arose not so much by design but more to do with the fortunes of personal circumstances of living and working in unfamiliar environments. Consequently the exhibition also questions the scope and limitations of attempting to make a comparison between locations. Last year, the exhibition was shown in Galveston at the Avery‐Winkler Artway, University of Texas Medical Branch and at the Minneapolis Convention Center. |
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Screening | Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle
Thursday 16 November, 6:20pm (doors at 6:05) Queens Film Theatre 20 University Square, Belfast BT7 1PA Directed by Paul Sng (Sleaford Mods: Invisible Britain) and narrated by Maxine Peake, Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle explores the catastrophic failures that have led to a chronic shortage of social housing in Britain. The screening will be followed by a discussion facilitated by PLACE. Panelists: Dearbhaille Heaney is founder of The Holding Project which seeks to build 20 compact, eco-friendly micro-homes in Belfast for young people. As the millennial generation become trapped in private rented accommodation for the long term, the project hopes to offer an alternative form of housing as a mechanism towards enabling social mobility. It also provides high quality, affordable and sustainable housing - which is currently under supplied in the city – and can utilise vital sites across the city which are currently vacant. The meanwhile use will provide new life to spaces previously neglected due to the historical troubles of the city. Fionnuala Kennedy is a playwright and theatre-maker living and working in Belfast. Fionnuala’s first play ‘Hostel’ (produced by Kabosh 2011) has toured for three years to a range of hostels, community centres and theatres. This play exploring sheltered accommodation for young families has been commissioned by different organisations including Simon Community NI, First Housing and Welcome Organisation to raise sensitive issues about homelessness and human rights. Seán Brady is an organiser with the Participation and Practice of Rights Organisation. PPR put the power of human rights at the disposal of marginalised communities and currently support campaigns led by homeless families, refugees and asylum seekers, travellers and people living in poor accommodation in three jurisdictions – north and south of the Irish border and in Scotland. Seán has also spent the last 18 months travelling to learn from housing campaigners in South Africa and North America. Chaired by: PLACE Board Member Ciarán Cuffe. Ciarán is an architect and urban planner. He runs the Masters Programme in Urban Regeneration and Development at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He has served as Minister of State with responsibility for climate change, planning and sustainable transport and travel. He is currently a city councillor for Dublin’s North Inner City and chairs Dublin City Council’s Transport Committee. Ciarán is a board member at PLACE. |
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Dwelling / Frédéric Huska & Duncan Ross
15th Sept - 1 November Opening 14th September 6pm - 8pm PLACE, 7-9 Lower Garfield Street Belfast, BT1 1FP FREE This show is part of a series of exhibitions that reconfigures two distinct bodies of work by artists Frédéric Huska and Duncan Ross into new possible dialogues, and seeks to explore the contingent and elusive connections between the mediums of drawing, photography and writing. Although develop independently, both practices intersect each other by revolving around the theme of the city, not as a subject matter in itself, but as a vehicle for connecting the unconscious realms of dreams, fantasies, fear and impulses. This installation seeks to open both practices to unexpected connections that may occur out of the mental movements between the photographic images, drawings and texts through visual and narrative analogies. |
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PLACE and ARdMackel present a lecture by
Professor Amira Osman Competition for Space and Power in Cities: Sudan and South Africa Wed 13 September 2017 5.30pm - 7.00pm Amira is Principal Researcher at the Centre for Applied Research and Innovation in the Built Environment at the University of Johannesburg. The event is free but space is limited so please RSVP by registering here |
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North Belfast Summer Fun Day
Tuesday 15 August 12 noon - 6pm St Gemma's 51-59 Ardilea Street BT14 7DG Free Join us for a day of fun, entertainment, games, activities, crafts, reminiscence and story telling, and lots of free food! We're offering a celebratory day of family-friendly fun. This is an opportunity for the community to come together, enjoy a range of activities, demos, and chats; find out about opportunities for training, learning, and volunteering, and tell us more about what positive changes you want to see in your community. Featuring workshops and events by Infinity Farm, Django Girls Belfast, WOMENSTEC, Jump Jiggle and Jive, Belfast Cookery School, and many others. At 4pm, we'll be firing up the Foodie Folk barbecue for free burgers, hot dogs, and veggie options. Everything is completely free and everyone is welcome. See you there? Click here for more information, or tell us you're coming on Facebook |
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Belfast's Buddleia in Bloom
Saturday 12 August 2pm - 5pm (meet at PLACE) £7.50 From the big Cromac Bottle Top to Sailortown we let the Buddleia plant lead us across the beautiful but neglected neighbourhoods of inner city Belfast. Buddleia loves buildings or rather abandoned buildings. It feeds on the lime mortar joints in brickwork, slowly breaking down the joint and allowing water in. It blooms a beautiful lavender colour in August every year. Many of the neglected and abandoned buildings in central Belfast provide a perfect environment for this plant to thrive. The walk starts at PLACE at 2pm, please wear weather appropriate clothing and comfortable shoes. Led by Declan Hill. Click here to book tickets! |
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Urban Design Academy: Belfast
31 July - 4 August Free PLACE Urban Design Academy is a free annual week-long event to introduce young people aged 14-18 to built environment disciplines, including architecture, urban design, town planning, and landscape architecture. This year the Urban Design Academy will be hosted in Belfast. Click here for more information and to register to participate. |
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A photographic walkabout with Aidan McGrath.
Saturday 17th June, 12pm - 1pm Meet at PLACE £10 We will walk around Belfast looking at and talking about the architecture and we'll encourage viewing it with a fresh perspective. We will make images, concentrating on the character of the buildings, rather than simple record making; we'll find visual interest in detail and explore the potential in pattern making with architectural features. We will seek beauty, or at least visual interest, in texture and the juxtaposition of colours and materials. We will chat about Belfast, its architecture and we will discuss technical issues such as lenses and cameras and also technique. We'll have an entertaining chat and we will, hopefully, create some images which capture the essence of the city. Programmed as part of the Belfast Photo Festival. |
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EXCLAVE - an exhibition of new work by Eamon Quinn and Caroline McCusker, commissioned by PLACE and Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios. 30th May - 27th June 2017 @ PLACE ‘Iconic’, ‘landmark’ and ‘gateway’ projects dot the city but the background fabric of the city itself is anemic. Missing is organic residential development around historic cores and the inclusion of higher density homes in new development plans. In January 2017 with support from Arts & Business, PLACE and FCBS ran an open call for artwork addressing the above themes. The successful artists were Eamon Quinn and Caroline McCusker who put forward a joint proposal to work in collaboration. Eamon Quinn’s interest in the built environment, the physicality of a development versus the history of an area or social need, combined with Caroline McCusker’s interest in breaking down the distinction between people and their domestic objects has led to the artists developing a new collaborative sculptural work. Focusing on construction and simultaneous destruction as a conceptual theme, and using salvaged architecture and new building materials, they have produced a finished structure that is surreal and precarious. |
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StreetSpace
Exhibition: 12-22 May Symposia: Friday 12 & Monday 22 May StreetSpace is a research and teaching project at Queen's University Belfast, that seeks to understand the significance of superdiverse streets, by analysing their physical, historical and experiential aspects. This multidisciplinary and international project aims to provide an alternative way of planning, preserving and developing streets. The exhibition shows the work developed in the project’s summer workshops and MArch studios of the last 2 years. The exhibition shows three specific streets in Belfast that are in process of redevelopment: North Street, Castle Street and the south corridor made up of Bedford Street, Dublin Road and Botanic Avenue using various maps and models. An international section will have a series of projects in poster format that explore the multidimensional values of streets developed by partners of the project in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Egypt and the Netherlands. On May 12, the Superdiverse Streets Symposium will explore a series of case studies in Belfast, Europe and beyond. Keynote: Matthew Carmona, Professor of Planning and Urban Design at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL. On May 22, the Heritage at Risk Streets Symposium will address the very pressing issue of the demolition of the built environment. Issues of community heritage, heritage practice and global heritage will be discussed throughout the day. The exhibition is public and free. If you want to participate in either of the events please contact Dr Agustina Martire at a.martire@qub.ac.uk. Tickets are free but places are limited. |
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ask an architect
13 - 19 May 2017 ask an architect is an annual event that takes place over a single week each year. During that week, architects across all of Northern Ireland will offer their services free of charge, giving advice to those considering a building or renovation project, all for a charitable a charitable donation of a minimum of £40 to local charity The Jill Todd Trust, in partnership with Friends of the Cancer Centre. ask an architect will give members of the public the opportunity to get expert advice from a chartered architect on building projects of all shapes and sizes. The initiative is organised by the Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RSUA), PLACE and the Jill Todd Trust. Thanks to our sponsors who cover administrative costs and provide critical pro bono services, 100% of all funds raised by ‘ask an architect’ will be used by Friends of the Cancer Centre to support local cancer research through clinical trials at the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology (CCRCB) at Queen’s University, Belfast. Visit www.askarchitect-ni.com for more information |
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The ‘Science’ of Cartography is Limited – Mapping Belfast’s Myths
PLACE, 7-9 Lower Garfield Street, Belfast, BT1 1FP Friday 21 April - Friday 5 May 2017 Opening event - Thursday 20 April 2017, 6PM Over the course of his PhD, research student and architect Andrew Molloy developed a unique practice-based mixed methodology allowing the city to be considered as a process rather than a product. In developing a non-ideological approach to urbanism highlighting the importance of tacit poetic interpretations when it comes to spatial understanding, Andrew both examined a series of maps of Belfast and attempted to map the city himself. This exhibition brings together these mappings – including planning documents, unrealised architectural proposals, GPS tracings and films – allowing their relative successes and failures to be assessed. |
