[This project ended on 20 April 2014.]
Thanks to Life in Vacant Spaces (LIVS), we are temporarily occupying a vacant retail space in the central city – in Cathedral Junction that runs between Gloucester & Worcester in the block behind the cathedral – and opening up The Inconvenience Store. Our main question is whether we can turn inconvenience into an asset and point of attraction for the central
city, or even articulate an alternative ‘vision’ to a society developed around the notion of convenience. The Inconvenience Store is a rolling week-long residency: each week someone new totally transforms and runs the store according to their interpretation of the name. BACKGROUND:
Long before the earthquakes, Christchurch’s central city was struggling because of all the massive – and incredibly convenient – suburban shopping malls. Some people want to push the inner city down that path towards more convenience, with free parking everywhere and a central air-conditioned mall. We feel that the central city needs a point of difference, that we should embrace ‘inconvenience’ and turn it into an asset and point of attraction for the city. And we’re sure we’re not the only ones: the slow food movement, the resurgence of crafting, the prevalence of home brewing, etc, all indicate a fairly widespread sense that ‘inconvenience’ is becoming more and more appealing in our fast-paced consumer society. Convenience breeds regularity and conformity, a proliferation of the same with no diversity. In a sense, CERA’s Recovery Plan for the central city is modelled on convenience, with the creation of physically discrete precincts of monocultures (the performing arts precinct, the innovation precinct), in place of an integrated variety of activities everywhere. So the Inconvenience Store might fulfil a genuine central city need; raise a critical voice; be absurd, silly, enjoyable; lead to new ideas for the central city; be a ‘real’ store, or an art project, or a performance piece, or pretty much anything that responds to this terrain. The ‘inconvenience’ might be in the physical layout of the store; in the products it carries; in the mode of payment; in the checkout procedures or interactions with the customers; or anything else. Pop in each week to check it out!
