More retailers, local authorities and developers should look to the arts to revitalise shopping areas.

As retail is having such a gloomy time through this period of economic stagnation, it’s been refreshing to witness how the arts are making a difference to empty spaces in City Centre shopping areas and enhancing the visitor experience.   

Mercurial Arts work with young people and a wide range of different audiences to create interactive digital dance projects. Based in The Bubble Chamber in Bull Yard, Coventry, these workshops and performances have not only benefitted the performers and their followers but on evaluation, shoppers and passers-by have fed-back on how interesting and rewarding it has been to witness energy, skills and talent coming together and breathing new life into an empty shop.  

http://youtu.be/wfzBwk8Khh8

Mercurial also hosted Warwick Arts Centre’s recent collaboration with Invisible Flock an interactive theatre company to stage ‘Bring the Happy: Mapping Coventry’ by occupying the disused shop and transforming it into a giant 3D map of the city. Visitors were invited to explore the map and discover what makes others happy and also submit their own happy memory. At the end of three weeks of collecting happy memories they were transformed into a performance; Bring the Happy Live.

Great projects like these animate spaces and have engaged with shoppers in a positive way. The trouble is they are too few and far between in Coventry. Under a shared vision to create inspiring cultural areas and experiences the Local Authority needs to encourage more arts organisations into the city centre, and stimulate entrepreneurial enthusiasm and opportunities for pop up activity, and not just in the Arts.

Taking some risk by allowing arts uses to flourish can support shops and cafes and can highlight potential to a developer looking for an opportunity to bring forward a distinctive scheme. Developer Argent targeted the Arts and pioneered this approach in Brindley Place, Birmingham a decade ago.

At a time of weak demand within the retail and office sectors, encouraging and subsidising arts tenants must be better than empty units that serve to deter people from visiting the City Centre. Instead of being utilised as a means to bridge the gap until a more profitable retailer comes into town, the arts should contribute to a long term shared vision with the local authority planners and developers to create inspiring places that visitors will want to come back to.

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