Ideal Development Opportunity
PSSquared, Belfast, April 2024
Ash Anraí-Jones, Laura Nelson, Katharine Paisley, Aiden Brady, Thomas Wells
‘Ideal Development Opportunity invites five artists to engage with and reimagine Belfast’s structures, whether built or social. Artists have met with communities of interest to develop responses in five different areas of the city (Botanic, Court, Sailortown, Skegoneill, and Titanic), with PS² acting as a central hub and research repository.
The project is longitudinal. The exhibition presents an evolving body of research from each of the artists, with opportunities for participation taking place through events with invited groups and visitors to the Project Space. Images from the artists' ongoing research will also be displayed on the PeasPark siteboard throughout 2024 as conversations and relationships continue to develop.’ -PS2
My piece within the exhibition invited the audience to add their own personal stories of place to a table or very vague map of Belfast. I was interested in their version of Belfast and what memories or stories constructed it. My take on ‘Ideal Development Opportunity’ is that developers coming into a city have no idea of the lived place. A place cannot be sensitively developed without first understanding the people, memories and histories forming that place.