Pop-up cinema and place-shaping: urban cultural heritage at Marshall's Mill

Abstract

‘Pop-up’ cinema is a phenomenon in which films are screened publicly at ad hoc venues, often outdoors – e.g. car parks, brownfield sites, beneath roadway flyovers, parks or pedestrianised spaces – screenings can ‘pop up’ literally anywhere. Through the case of a pop-up cinema in May 2012 at Marshall's Mill, a protected heritage site in Leeds (UK), the paper questions the relations between cities, communities and overlooked or marginal landscapes. This paper contextualises this pop-up cinema event within debates about urban cultural regeneration and shifting frameworks for cultural heritage. It specifically explores the construction of heritage communities within the Council of Europe [2005, October 27. Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society. Faro. Retrieved August 22, 2012, from http://conventions.coe.int/treaty/en/treaties/html/199.htm]. Within this policy framework, it is suggested that active, participatory, creative uses and processes can redefine cultural heritage and reshape urban places. Pop-up events, such as cinema but also including a range of arts, leisure and cultural activities, can help to envision opportunities and enact possibilities of reimagining and promoting different kinds of urban spaces, especially in contract to emphases during the recent neoliberal regeneration of many UK city centres, during what are now more challenging economic times.