For this assignment, Jirapat and I decided to keep The Block Arcade as our ‘sacred palce’. Initially, we thought that it would be easier for us to understand the site better since we are already familiar with the place from the previous assigment. However, what we thought could be at our advantage became a problem to us. This is because we felt like we have already seen everything there is in The Block Arcade and there is nothing new for us to discover anymore. We were at a dead end and it was hard for us to look at the site in a new approach. Due to that, we decided to interview some shop owners that we believe would have a different perspective and opinions of the place compared to us. It would be interesting to listen to their thoughts for having worked there every day for many years.
Unfortunately, we never expected to get rejected by every shop owner when we tried to approach them for an interview. It was mostly because they were too busy. We were almost about to give up until we decided to try asking the shops on the higher levels of the building who has lesser customers. Fortunately, we met Kate who works at a souvenir shop on the third floor. We were lucky enough that Kate was very friendly. When asked about what she feels towards the The Block Arcade, she looked out her office’s window and said that it was nice for her to be able to see the contrast between the busy city and the Block, as if she can escape from the city vibes. She also mentioned that working at the Block Arcade made her feel like she was a part of Melbourne history. To add that, she described the Block Arcade as A Hidden Gem, which was where Jirapat and I got our project name from.
From that, Jirapat and I came up with the idea to use her words as prompts to describe The Block Arcade as a hidden gem. We wanted to show what makes The Block Arcade special and different from the modern lifestyle of the busy city. With that, we came up with two key questions alongside some research behind it.
- What defines place identity?
Distinctiveness is one of the principles of place identity. It indicates a desire to maintain its uniqueness from others. It embeds special affiliation between someone and the surrounding environment which is clearly different from other affiliation. These distinctive experiences can create emotional & psychological reactions between people and the places. Manzo(2005) states that a place allows someone to reconnect to the experiences, past feeling, memories, and events as well which is prominent for an individual. This relates very much to the interview we had with a shop owner.
2. What defines the vividness within the place?
According to Blazhenkova (2016), Vividness is a characteristic of visual imagery and so we approached it in two ways. The first one being the vivid colours and designs of the place. The second one is imagery experiences. The different individual memories of the visual imagery shown inside the building. We explored the different stories told by everything around us. The building was built as a version of the Galleria Vittorio in Milan, decorated with beautiful ceiling details, colourful mosaic floor and windows, and the mural painting by the old Singer sewing store. These features enriched the vividness of the place through its vivid colours and details. In terms of imagery experiences, details such as the mural painting brings back the memory of the Singer sewing store that once occupied the space and was a meaningful place for the people (especially ladies) in the mid-1800s. Classical music played inside the building also play an important role in resembling the vibe and perceptual experience of the early days of the Block.
For our end video, our approach to show the distinctive and vivid side of the Block Arcade was to be as intimate as possible. We used both audio and video to show tell the story. We received feedback from Robbie that it was great to see that our work made it seem like we interviewed the place itself, rather than the people there. Not only that, we also received feedback that we were able to capture the on and off switch of the Block Arcade as well as capturing a wider perspective of the place and comparing it to the outside. The use of classical music was also complimented as it shows that people would usually listen to classical music as an escapee from their busy lives, and seeing it played at the Block Arcade could show that the place was indeed an escape itself.