This is an ongoing project which looks at how narratives of cities are created, reshaped and sold, and how this affects the identities and fantasies of their inhabitants and visitors. So far this film-based work spans Ireland, Japan and The Netherlands.

This work will take the form of an immersive site-specific film installation across various public and private sites in Belfast. The audience will be invited to directly inhabit the work by reading scripts and following instructions.

The project includes footage from Huis Ten Bosch in Japan. This is a theme park which has exact replicas of buildings from the Netherlands, creating a fake Dutch town in Japan. I went there to film on a residnecy at Arts Itoya, Takeo. I stayed in the worlds first ‘Robot Hotel’, with a dinosaur receptionist. The future vision of tourism forms part of the narrative of Scripted Cities.

Characters in the work will be based on the experiences of different people with a connection to the city such as: people who have left and reluctantly returned, tourists, actors visiting for work, and people who have never left.​​​ The work considers the idea of being ‘actors’ in our own lives and our sense of identity being impacted by places, films and branding. The audience will move through places where fantasy and reality meet in a disconcerting way.

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