Wednesday
Street interviews
For our first experiences with our street interviews, we decide to go for the red and green balls tubes. Basically, we ask all kinds of passengers whether they consider the Cultural Caiptal title of Liverpool to be a bless (green ball) or a bore (red ball).
Liverpool One is a brand new shopping centre, erected especially for this year – though it’s here to stay of course. While construction workers are still walking on and off to finish off new buildings, the Liverpool inhabitants shop till they drop.
In the middle of all this, we try to gather all the opinons of the people passing us by. Most people’s reactions are quite positive. Why? Because the Cultural Capital creates a lot of new jobs. Most pro arguments are about the economics anyway. We even talked to a guy who just started working in one of the new shops.
Eventually, it’s ten green balls to one red ball… what kind of reactions would we have received in the former shopping centre at Bold Street?
Meet up with David Parrish and Mike Carney
At FACT cafe, we meet up with David Parrish and – later on – Mike Carney. Actually, David invited us to come by and visit LIverpool in the first place. Mike is a Liverpool based graphic designer and did the book design of David’s book called ‘T-shirts and Suits’.
Here’s a short clip in which David tells us something about the legacy of Liverpool as Capital of Culture. Mind that he points out that being the Capital of Culture is no the same as being Capital of Regeneration.
-video coming soon-
After lunch and some questions about what the course of Liverpool is and what it should be, we take a trip down to Bold Street, the Bluecoat and the Albert Dock (where Tate Liverpool is situated).
As we continue…
After the nice scenery at the Albert Dock, we returned to the centre. On our way over, we came across a small warehouse in which there was a great exhibition, initiated by the Liverpool Biennial.
This warehouse was abanoned and just stood empty for a long time. The Liverpool Biennial contacted the owner and they managed to rent the place for a short time to organise this exhibition. The hole wasn’t big, but some of the artworks on display were quite amazing. Especially the installation done by a Japanese artist was very impressive. It was a dark room with mirrors and colourful lights int it: her interpretation of hallucinations from her childhood.
Finally, we stumble upon in a really cool place called the Static Gallery, run by Paul Sullivan, which inhabites a small noodle restaurant, a gallery and some small offices for creative entrepreneurs such as architects and model makers.
Mike tells us about some projects he is involved in at his neighbourhood. These are not adopted in the official Liverpool ‘08 programme, but rather are bottom-up reactions, initiated by people living in the communities. Friday we are going to dig deeper into that matter: Mike is going to show us around Garston, a suburb of Liverpool and the place where he lives. More to come!
Thoughts on culture and the Capital of Culture
Talking to Mike and walking through the newer parts of Liverpool, we were thinking about parallels with Utrecht.
The city centre of Liverpool has always been around Bold Street, but with European funds a new city centre has been created (and is still under construction) and is called Liverpool One. Our interviews from this morning leads to a lot of positive voices: more shopping, more employment, etc.
But in this interview Mike is giving another view on Liverpool One, calling it Liverpool gone:
When he said those words, we saw parallels with the (in)famous Utrecht shopping mall Hoog Catharijne and the new planned city centre of Utrecht. How can one build a city centre - which normally takes years and years to evolve in a more organic way - in just a few years? Can a small group of people just create culture? We think the phenomena called ‘culture’ is the result of a large group of people over a long period.
Regarding these thoughts, the words of David Parrish came into our mind again: is Liverpool a Capital of Culture or a Capital of Regeneration?
Onwards with David and Mike we reach the Albert Dock. One of their slogans states: “Albert Dock, experience Liverpool in a day.” If Liverpool One is Hoog Catharijne then Albert Dock maybe is the Dom Tower, the icon of Utrecht. So can you experience Utrecht, just by climbing the Dom? Is it possible to use a city icon to define culture anyway? Well, obviously, that’s nonsense.
