Piccadilly: Urban Decay Photography from Jay Rose
Piccadilly: Urban Decay
Artist Statement:
The images in this series are from a shopping centre that’s infamous in the Wollongong Region.
The Piccadilly Centre. The Centre has been slowly decaying since the mid 1970’s, when the
anchor tenant (a supermarket) pulled out.
From then the centre started to lose shops and has slowly made way for medical imaging suites
and “specialist” shops and businesses. These range from stores that sell ergonomic footwear, a
shop that sells “vases” (bongs and pipes), pawnbrokers, scores of empty and unused shops, a
massage parlour/brothel, a church and a small cafe.
It hasn’t helped that the centre has also seen several murders, an armed standoff, being
condemned and shut down for not having adequate insurances or meeting fire safety standards.
Many see it as an eyesore, or a place where the derelicts of the community congregate. This
reputation is not helped by the reality that the roof is home to a motel that’s used as
temporary/emergency/crisis accommodation provided by the government. It has a reputation
as being one of the roughest motels in town.
There’s a disused nightclub space on the roof that was once called Kennedys/Chequers. It was
the only gay club in the city at the time, and remained so for over 20 years. This night club
operated during the height of the HIV/AIDS Crisis and for many was a home away from home
for many members of the Wollongong LGBTQIA+ Community. The nightclub is now inaccessible,
but you will see the skylight that sits just next to the former nightclub.
What drew me to this building is that when people tell me that somewhere/someone or
something is either ugly or disgusting or just plain wrong, it encourages me to actively look at
them with my own eyes and make my own judgement.
My mother has always said from the time I was a kid that it's best not to hate by proxy. That is,
don't hate something or someone just because someone else hates it and wants you to feel that
way too. Make up your own mind. In my lived experience as a queer person, I've been on the
receiving end of the preconceived ideas of others, simply because one person may not like me or
I may not fit their idea of how a person should be. Sometimes we have to give people, places and
situations a chance.
This centre has become somewhat of a living time capsule. Its signage framed in the same
yellowing fonts, dilapidation and dereliction already well-set in. Somehow, in its own way. I feel
we can see the fractured beauty that is present, in even the darkest places.
The sobering reality away from the complex and fractured beauty, is that we have a centre
barely clinging on to life. A place that is scorned and unwanted. A place whose mere name
garners a look of disgust amongst people, in a city focused on gentrifying, 'progress' and
removing a complicated history. A history riddled with secrets, stories and realities that some
people would rather be forgotten.
However. as ‘Lola’ says in the film Kinky Boots ...
‘one never knows what joy one might find amongst the unwanted’
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