PAST EXHIBITIONS

'Yellow Space', an exhibition at Belfast Exposed examined the possibilities for city living in Belfast. Around the world, the colour yellow is often used as a sign for useful or shared objects, for example a phone directory, a taxi, or a post-it note. Yellow is the colour of consensus, utility, and access - exactly those qualities we expect to find and enjoy in a city. However these are also the qualities that are most under threat in all contemporary cities, not least Belfast.

Produced by a Building Initiative team at the University of Ulster, the exhibition and events of 'Yellow Space' will ask: how yellow is Belfast? and: how can Belfast become more yellow? The series of events around the city in May/June 2006 aims to catch the imagination with a bold and striking image based on the primary colour yellow. A multi-media exhibition at Belfast Exposed gallery will run in parallel to installations at Royal Avenue, St. George's Market, and Laganside, and provide the setting for a number of workshops and public discussions.

The exhibition aims to develop public consciousness of urban environmental issues. It will present a critical analysis of development in Belfast since the peace process. A number of successful social, environmental, and construction projects from other cities will be documented to explain alternative approaches. The exhibition will also include specific proposals for Belfast developed in partnership with a variety of institutions, groups, and individuals. These include ways to address: the consequences of retail-led development in the city centre; the problems at interface areas between the two communities; the environmental impact of bonfires; and the low environmental quality of towns and cities generally throughout the province. In this way the exhibition will demonstrate paths of initiative through which civil enterprise can resume its formative role in the built environment in Northern Ireland.

'Yellow Space' was produced by the Building Initiative team, a architecture group based at the School of Art & Design, University of Ulster, and supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's Special Initiative on Architecture and the Built Environment.