Shopping Centred

by Fifi Aitken

Local shopping centres have played a central role in most of our lives, especially in our formative younger years. But these places are changing as milk bars are replaced with apartments, suburban shopping centres are redeveloped into mega centres, and retail shifts online. This film responds to the question, “How can we translate and preserve history through media, in order to maintain meaningful sites after they’ve become obsolete, or abandoned, or taken on new forms.

Filmed at on a handycam at Bell St mall, Heidelberg, featuring audio contributions from friends and family, Shopping Centred explores the collective experience of shopping centre nostalgia from a squirt of sauce right into the pie, to the forbidden gift shop. I was gifted with so much connection by making this film, through sharing stories to laugh and reminisce over. I also saw a new perspective of the physical site of Bell St Mall, which I feel needed more time and attention from myself in order to fully appreciate it as a cultural hub.