A 1970s shopping arcade could become the birthplace of a city’s future as Dundee Design Festival (DDF) moves in.
The annual event will open next Tuesday at the Keiller Shopping Centre.
Built on the site once occupied by a confectionary factory, the sweet times of high customer numbers enjoyed by the mall in the 1980s have now passed, with organisers of the annual design festival describing it as “challenged”.
However, it is hoped that the seven-day event could not only regenerate the centre, but also help “transform the lives” of Dundee residents.
Despite recent developments like the opening of the V&A Dundee – which has welcomed more than half a million people since September – the Tayside city retains pockets of high deprivation.
It is hoped that members of the public will flock to the Keiller Centre to reimagine their community’s future in a series of temporary exhibition spaces and “design-led experiences” all themes around identity and improving Dundee for those who live there.
Tayside-based creatives have been recruited for a series of shows, workshops and more.
This includes a live production space where designers will make pieces to be sold at the festival in retail spaces around the city, and a “poster playground” in which visitors can make their own large-scale works to be photographed, printed and displayed at prime sites around the local area.
In a festival announcement, Ryan MacLeod of local design studio Agency of None, which will produce this year’s event, commented: “We are looking forward to basing Dundee Design Festival in the Keiller Centre in the heart of Dundee city centre. We want to engage an area of the city that is in danger of disappearing but has many positive memories from the past, somewhere we can prototype a new use and identity for the space and leave behind a positive change in the city.”
While units in the Keiller Centre have emptied over the years, a number of rivals aimed at big-name chains have boosted retail in the city. These include the Overgate Centre and Gallagher Retail Park.
Hidden behind other buildings, the mall’s location is thought to be amongst the factors that have contributed to the decline in footfall.
Meanwhile, the rise in online shopping remains a challenge for traditional outlets.
Preparing for the festival, Keiller Centre manager Angus Morton, who has worked at the site for 20 years, said: “We are looking forward to seeing the exhibitions and welcoming visitors through our doors.”
Lyall Bruce of Agency of None stated: “Cities are changing, the spaces we created for the economy of yesterday are left unloved.
“A city that is modern and progressive is a city that understands its role in collaborating with its citizens to develop a shared identity, remove barriers to progress and instil a sense of pride and possibility in those who live in it and a sense of wonder to those visiting. The DDF 2019 theme is making cities more liveable and loveable by getting citizens involved and engaged.”
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