Reconsidering the Big Box Approach

It’s been five years since the announcement of a new £22 million arts center for the city of Belfast, and very little progress seems to have been made. For one thing, not everyone in the arts community wants a big, unwieldy, centralized home for the city’s myriad groups, fearing that it will detract from neighborhood-based art. For another, the plans for the center seem as much about revitalizing a run-down section of the city as they do about promoting culture, and many prominent arts groups have already issued a polite “no, thank you” to the invitation.