Places and Spaces Forgotten

Forgotten spaces. Site analysis filming of three places neglected but intriguing and important for various reasons we often are unaware.

We have a relationship with spaces. Wether this relationship is evident to you as you walk through a place, simply looking to another space where you are heading it is still there. Within each space you feel something. This is not always a good thing. 

These spaces are often forgotten spaces, waiting to be stimulated, simulated or inhabited by a person, object, sense, light or emotion. These forgotten spaces are everywhere - the alleyway around the back of your house, the derelict land across the street, the spaces between the lamppost and the wall, a rooftop inhabited by only bird feaces and feathers. These places are all spaces, often spaces in-between other spaces that mean they become unimportant.

Where I live in Dundee, there are many of these neglected and forgotten spaces, many of which are passageways behind the main streets where new buildings have met old buildings in interesting means and forms. Specific areas became interesting to me through investigating space in a new way. Interesting was how these spaces are used, for example the grafitti (or street art) decorating the bridge at the waterfront alongside overgrown nature or the emotion evoked in passageways where although it may be 2pm there is is always a spooky, unsafe atmosphere.

Textures of the alleyway

Grafitti or Street art?

The most intriging space for me is the building facades above the main high street shops. People wander, minds focused on one thing - buying, and forget everything around. As I filmed the tops of buildings, I was asked by at least six people what was I actually looking at. They had never before appreciated the beauty of the timeless architecture styles above their heads. This place is simply forgotten because of the consumerism around them in the form of lights, advertising and money.

The 'forgotten' building tops

These spaces connect with you as you connect with them. But these places could be improved to convey different emotions, provide a different setting, space or experience through stimulation and simulation. These urban spaces in the environment are intriguing through their individuality and the opportunity for postive changes are endless.