about town: mill chimney 2000

article in cartography, the city, published by catalyst arts
distributed throughout belfast

Mill Chimney 30 / 8 / 00
There is a Mill Chimney in the middle of Clonard, but the mill is long gone. The area was built up around the former mills and industry of Belfast. That industry is now long gone but the chimney remains, surrounded by houses local business and building works.

It now serves no practical function and divides local opinion. Some see it as a landmark that should remain as a marker identifying the area with its' origins. Others see its' disuse and truncated state as a physical and unstable threat, a vertical, functionless form overshadowing local streets with the possibility of collapse. Both views are analogous to the story of the linen industry in Belfast.

'About Town' consists of a series of incidental stories from around Belfast gathered over the period of two months. These stories are used to attempt to map the city in a verenacular personalised way.

Belfast is a city frequently represented in the printed media but the representations of the city in newspapers are often restricted to familiar cliches of an unlivable place. This article takes the form of a map, acknoweledging it as an editorial document where select information is included or left out according to the maps function.