Castlecourt: Beyond the Theatre of Consumption

Beyond the Theatre of Consumption imagines a metaphorical theatre in Castlecourt Shopping Centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The project is an exploratory transformation through a series of interventions that challenge and transform the logic of the consumerist space. 

Whereas the current redevelopment of Castlecourt seeks to accommodate experience economy, this project imagines another reality in which Castlecourt is perceived as a theatre where people and spaces can appear differently. While theatres are growing spaces of indefinite relations and narratives, consumerist spaces impose controlled perspectives on the spectator. They only give space to the capitalist strategy of consumption.

This metaphorical theatre of interventions lets a plurality of functions, which are imagined as actors, re-situate Castlecourt as a public and curious space. The reincarnated actors include a parcel shop, marketplace, hotel, cinema, apartments and bus stop. The newcomers include a stage, greenhouse, nightclub, staircase, new arcade and maintenance lounge.

The transformation happens gradually. The actors inhabit vacant shop units from where they fold out, grow, attach and intervene. Together they provoke scenes of unexpected meetings to appear.