Date:	March 09 - March 10
Artist:	Sean Edwards
Location:	Maelfa Shopping Centre, Llanedeyrn, Cardiff

For Sean Edwards' project, Maelfa Shopping Centre,
Llanedyern, will be the focus of a filmic portrait of a
near derelict space.

Built around a block of high-rise flats in a council estate in the mid 1970’s, the architecture is typical of modernist utopian aspirations and is scheduled for demolition in late 2009 to make way for a new shopping centre.

Currently most shops have empty shelves and closed doors; only a green-grocer, pharmacy, library and opticians remain. Sean will spend three months in the centre, shooting video and film as well as making site-specific installations and sculptures. The film and work to be made during the residency period will develop his interventions into everyday systems and orders that concentrate on the detritus of daily life and the inevitable failure of human aspirations for greatness. For the first time in his work the project will bring to the forefront the personal history of the artist, as well as the space by using members of his family. Alongside inanimate objects within the final film they will be used as references for discussing the architecture and social and personal histories of the space.

Filmed as a series of shorts – somewhere between a haunted house picture, a science fiction film, a socialist documentary, a family melodrama and a children’s animation – the film and objects will balance precariously between points of fact and fiction; success and failure.

Separate to the film and the sculpture there will be a printed publication/poster to expand upon the narrative contained within the film. Likewise the film will expand upon issues raised in the publication around the nature of the shared and personal histories of such spaces.

In producing this film about a public space it is Sean's hope to expand upon the notions of what constitutes a public artwork and to pursue a new area of interest within his work and further his technical and conceptual skills.