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Addressing the Ephemeral: Project for a Community Makerspace in Residential Blackpool

Part 1 Project 2020
Joseph Wojewoda
University of Central Lancashire | UK
The existing souvenir culture in Blackpool is oversaturated. Shelf upon shelf of often imported novelties stretched miles along the promenade advertised by bright luminescent billboards. These novelties are both cheap and overpriced, pointless yet hilarious, but always ephemeral. Blackpool feels ephemeral. An over-satiated haze, transitory, repetitive. Souvenirs seemingly exist only to exploit for capital which becomes evident with ‘made in somewhere else’.

A souvenir should be locally made, support local businesses and local people. A souvenir should be a memory of an experience, a personal memento. With Blackpool lacking localism, contributing to the local community is essential for the proposal. It is the user or buyer that gives meaning to an object, beforehand it merely waits to exploit the emotions of memory and reminiscence.

“it is the pedestrians who transform a street (geometrically defined as a place by town planners) into a space.” – Marc Ague, 1995.

The project aims to provide the tourists and residents of Blackpool a community makerspace workshop centered around Lino printing. Visitors would be able to learn the process and produce tailored souvenirs based on their Blackpool experiences, to which they can either keep or donate to an on-site gallery to support local artists.

Joseph Wojewoda

Tutor(s)

2020
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