There are many common reasons why someone seeks to buy a used shipping container. Some use them as small retail or catering outlets. Others like to convert them into glamping pods, or even combine a couple in a self-built home. At the last football World Cup, 74 were used to construct a stadium in Doha.
Few would imagine they might simply be used for art, but that, it appears, is how they do things in Cardiff.
As Wales Online reports, a single, black shipping container recently appeared right outside Cardiff Central Station, stood upright. At 20 ft tall, it is a striking sight, reminiscent of the mysterious monolith that appears in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
However, it may be less about Stanley Kubrick and more about Cardiff band the Manic Street Preachers, as the one clue about what is inside is contained by the large, bright neon lights outside spelling out the words “under neon loneliness” – lyrics from the song Motorcycle Emptiness.
As the article notes, inside the container is a dazzling neon art display by filmmaker, graphic designer and artist Mark James, who was born in the city and has created it for the Cardiff Music Festival.
Inside are 34 light boxes and neon signs, with this array being reminiscent of the streets of Tokyo, a place Mr Jones often visits for work.
He told Wales online this illuminated environment provides “the feeling of stepping into another world, but it’s a foreign world and it’s almost overwhelming – the same feeling I think the Manics were getting at in the song”.
The container was only in situ until October 20th, but that was ample time for it to have a major impact, not least with its location next to the city’s main railway station, where plenty of commuters will have stopped to have a look.
Whether many of those getting on and off trains to and from other destinations within easy reach of the city have seen shipping containers adapted for use in such an artistic fashion is one question, but those rising across the Severn Bridge to Bristol may well have seen them in use at the Cargo array in Wapping Wharf, filled with small shops and places to eat.
Cargo is perhaps a much more common use of them in Britain, not unlike Hatch in Manchester, or the new STACK development in Middlesbrough, which is set to open either by the end of this year or early in 2025, with 25 containers providing food, drink and entertainment at a plaza that, like Hatch, is located under a flyover.
STACK Middlesbrough will follow STACK Newcastle and STACK Lincoln, which both opened this year, as the concept takes hold across the country. A second STACK in Newcastle will open next year, with other developments planned across the north and Midlands.
For that reason, it may be that the arty use for an old shipping container devised for a music event in Cardiff remains an exception. In other locations, there may be a bit of neon, but traders certainly won’t be experiencing much loneliness.
