- Venue
- Chapter
- Location
- Wales
Sean Edward’s Maelfa is a film portrait reflecting the demise of aspirational modernist architecture generically created by local authorities up and down the UK in the 1970s. Maelfa was once the largest indoor shopping centre in Wales and a thriving microcosm built around a block of high-rise flats in a council estate. Edwards grew up nearby and frequented Maelfa daily for maybe a bag of chips or a Batman comic on his way home from school. His family still live in the area and he returned for a residency to focus on making the film. This closeness and intimacy that Edwards feels from growing up with the changing Maelfa is strikingly evident in the careful longing caress his camera spends on each and every inch of his film.
The architecture and structure of Maelfa is revealed teasingly in surface reflection alone. What tricks us first as layering, is actually painstakingly produced in real time through repeatedly complex shootings of a single tracking shot. Edwards deploys this shooting style to create a subtle pacing that draws the exterior structure through slight changes in light beautifully mourning the loss of the recent past.
Maelfa is without sound denoting the centre’s recent decline and subsequent deterioration that has signalled its imminent demolition. It is in fact in the slight breathing patterns and suppressed coughs that occur within the screening that create in my mind how Maelfa sounds. It is not dead yet but it is certainly dying.
Characteristically, Edwards treats the building as an object albeit one too large to get in his studio. Firstly he analyses its every detail casting a slow, uninterrupted, faithful eye across each neglected surface. Then carefully exposing its collected memories, he utilises everything from displaced newspapers to discount signage and coerces us into making our own conclusions for Maelfa’s future.
Maelfa seems contemplative and sombre as I wait nervously and patiently for what may come into view. There is a real tangible sense of watching the behemoth sleep. We are careful not to disturb Maelfa’s slumbers making our linear passage from entrance to exit that are reminiscent of the long corridors of Nostromo, the ship from the Alien film. We take in room after room never deviating from the camera’s glare, relishing in Edwards’ painterly embrace that recalls Ryman through to Ruscha.
Ultimately it is the Maelfa architects, like the human race, who are to blame for foolishly aiming for greatness but falling repeatedly short of it. Poignantly in our detox obsessed culture, Maelfa gathers dust and its dated germs must be wiped away to be replaced by yet another brand new utopian shopping ideal. Edwards’ film quietly proposes a social document in memoriam to Maelfa’s past glories.
Maelfa was shown at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff on October 14th and will be shown at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea on November 19th at 1pm.
Sean Edwards’ new book Maelfa will be launched at this event.
Sean Edwards’ solo show Maelfa at Spike Island will run from Jan 21- end of March 2011
