Author: Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe

Why do people choose to visit cafés?

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / / People, Research

I thought it would be wise if we were to do our piece in the café then I would need to gain further understanding as to why people decide to visit cafes. After I started to pay more attention at The Collection, I began to notice how people seem to be in their own little bubble and didn’t pay much attention to their surroundings or the people around them. It made me begin to question things such as;

Do people choose to visit cafes for the coffee, the atmosphere, or for the company they keep?

 It seems that all these things merged together create an experience that makes people want to come back time and time again. People tend to visit cafes for different reasons, for some people it could be for a catch up with friends, others just to get away from their everyday life. For a lot of people it was another place to sit and do work. They go to do their work their because from personal experience the work load doesn’t seem so much when it is taken out of its normal surroundings, often a café is described as being a third place in a person’s life other than work and home.
Neeti Gupta has a theory that when we are alone in a public place, we have a fear of ‘having no purpose’ ((References:
Gupta, N 2004,’Grande Wi-Fi:Understanding what Wi-Fi users are doing in coffee-shops’. New Delhi, India, School of Planning and Architecture)). If we are in a public place and it looks like we have no business there, it may not seem socially appropriate. In contrast to this it is also suggested that ‘today’s coffee houses are less political settings than refuges from the stress of everyday life, where people can meet and talk, read, listen to music or poetry or simply watch the world go by’ ((Humboldt Bay Coffee Company, 2006 [Accessed: 24/02/2013] http://web.archive.org/web/20070915014128/http://www.humboldtcoffee.com/History.htm)). As these both give different perspectives it was decided that we needed to do research as to why people came and visited the café in The Collection to figure out who came to the café and for what purpose as I believe that our performance should be based around what we figure out through researching so we can gain a better understanding of the space.

Why do you choose to visit a cafe?

Initial ideas…

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / / Inspiration, People

We decided on the café as our main performance space and cleared permission to use the space. Initially we had a lot of ideas sprouting off in different directions so it wasn’t clear which path our piece would take and sometimes throughout the process we often overthought ideas and tried to make it more into a theatre performance rather than it connecting and relating to our chosen site.

Ideas included:

  • Create something in the café that doesn’t belong there, such as an exhibition or installation.
  • Create shadows in the window with white cloth and create a shadow performance (more theatre performance rather than relating to the site).
  • Each person representing a different representation of the café.
  • Each member to sit in an alcove and talk to themselves.

Look into ideas to influence our piece such as;

  • Reckless sleepers, the last supper.
  • Documentation, possibly using Verbatim Theatre to create our script as it could give it a more personal feel.


So the journey begins…

Shellie-Ann Barrowcliffe / / Inspiration, People, Space

‘Site Specificity arises precisely in uncertanties over the borders and limits of work and site…’ ((Kaye, N Site Specific Art, (2000) p.215))

Exploring The Collection and the connecting Usher Gallery, I can see many interesting spaces that have great potential to be unusual performance spaces, such as up on the balcony between the two education rooms, the space underneath the building outside, just name a few.
Looking at The Collection and The Usher Gallery its clearer how different they are, so depending on which type of performance you wish to create depends on what site you would chose. For example the Usher Gallery is more of a place to sit and reflect whereas The Collection is more of a social, education place. One that caught the group’s eye was that of the café, situated in The Collection.

The café is owned by the company Stokes, who has several other cafes around Lincoln. We were initially interested in the architecture of the café and liked the fact that the ceiling was several different heights with lights hanging from the ceiling which all levelled out at the same height. Even though some of the casing that surrounded these lights was broken I still thought it was pretty.

It is not often that I look at a space in so much detail but I was really noticing so much that I normally wouldn’t. Looking from outside into the space I was amazed to see that the alcoves inside looked like they could be framed by the windows because it was sectioned off in a way from the rest of the café, it was on a raised step and looked interesting from the outside and this gave us an initial idea to want to use these for part of our performance as they were interesting to view from inside and outside. Looking at the overall space outside it was interesting to look at how the two buildings could be connected and yet they are far apart creating an outside space which can be used for the café during summer.