Belfastʼs city centre is the heart of the Belfast metropolitan area and as such it performs a very important strategic role in acting as a “shop window” for the rest of Northern Ireland.
2013 is a landmark year for Belfast as the city celebrates itʼs 400th birthday. Throughout the past 400 years that the city has existed it has had many cultural, architectural and political changes imposed upon it. Especially throughout the 1970ʼs and 80ʼs which saw the conflict within Northern Ireland reach extremes. This caused considerable physical destruction to the city which in turn led to a general under- performance and under-investment in comparison to other cities within the United Kingdom.
During the mid 1990ʼs with the development of the peace process came a massive redevelopment of the metropolitan side of the city. Belfast was rebranded and resold as a metropolitan city full of delights, culture and opportunity. Cinema was employed to assist in re-marketing Belfast, with films released after the peace process such as ʻWith Or With Out youʼ(1995) and ʻWild About Harryʼ(1999) which acted almost as advertisements for this ʻnewʼ Belfast.
However, in 2004 area plans were released which detailed many further improvements that were to be made to the metropolitan area of belfast. The plans describe the reconstruction of areas affected by the under-investment of the cityʼs troubled past. This reconstruction is to be finished by 2015.
There have been a considerable amount of new developments within Belfast city centre in preparation for 2015. The commercial, entertainment and housing sectors throughout the city are all beginning to experience this redevelopment. As a result of this the city is once again at an important transitional stage of its history.
Belfast has been photographed employing a cinematic style, this is to replicate the style that was originally used in the films previously stated, which aided in the re-marketing of Belfast during the peace process. The work primarily focuses on unkempt areas of the city which show the co-existence of old and new architecture, this reveals a personal visual aesthetic caused by Belfastʼs troubled past.
