“It was empty, but it didn’t feel empty at all.”
This is how artist Prisma Stream (real name Lea Mattia) describes walking into the Keiller Centre at the height of lockdown in 2021.
“It was the first month I’d been in Dundee,” says Prisma, who hails from Italy and worked in the care sector in Edinburgh for several years prior to relocating.
“I walked in and felt I’d found this magical place. It was energised.”
When I pop in on a spring Saturday afternoon, there’s certainly a buzz behind the shutters of the under-threat shopping centre.
Plans for a new ‘Keiller Quarter’ could see the place razed and replaced with student accommodation
And the corridors may be empty but, as centre boss Kathryn Rattray explains, the centre is actually at 90% capacity, with 15 new short leases signed until October 2025.
“We only have 4 units that are not being occupied at the minute,” she tells me. “Even though it doesn’t look like it.”
As Prima unlocks her unit, the metal clanks away to reveal a weird and wonderful world of paintings, music production gadgets and mystery.
Used paintbrushes spray up like flowers in an old teapot while a curtained-off studio space looms beyond the stark chequered vinyl.
“It’s all a bit makeshift around here, which is what we love,” smiles Prisma, 29.
She’s part of the artistic community who have in recent years become the heartbeat of the Keiller Centre, hosting independent clothing pop-up shops, live music events, and even reiki workshops.
She’s had this unit for just a couple of months, after Kathryn, who runs the centre’s Federation Gallery, helped her to find her feet in Dundee.
“That painting there is from Milan, but my friend from Mill O’ Mains gave it to me,” says Prisma, jerking her thumb at a small landscape behind her.
“The one next to it is Kathryn’s daughter’s. That one -” she points into the window of her unit at a giant abstract “- is mine. And we had an artist from Chile in the other day, before that some people from Dunfermline.
“This place really connects people, in a way things like social media don’t match.”
Keiller Quarter could call end to centre
As we speak, Prisma whooshes around in a flurry of electric blue, raking about for the makings of a cuppa at Federation Gallery’s bright and sparkly bar, decked out with shiny foil curtains like a kids’ party.
There is just enough sugar for two, and she insists on giving me the last spoonful, and a biscuit. There’s nowhere to pay; that’s not the point.
And over the next two hours, I’ll see countless wandering souls of every age and background stop here for a chat and a warm brew – some artists, some shoppers, some strangers.
I get the sense that for many, this might be the only friendly conversation they have today.
“I love this place because it’s so accessible,” Prima says. “In a sense of community yes, but also that it’s all on one level, and right in the middle of town. That’s so rare.”
Of course, the knife hanging over the conversation is the same one hanging over the centre’s head.
And for the centre’s lingering unit owners, an uncertain future could make their community – and livelihoods – a thing of the past.
Last man standing: Rab Lawrence
Robert ‘Rab’ Lawrence has been cutting keys and repairing shoes in his Sole and Heel Bar for 45 years.
He left school in 1970 at 15 and learned his trade in Timpsons. The Keiller Centre opened its doors in 1979, and by mid-1980, Rab had his own business.
“I’ve been here since it opened, basically,” says Dundee-born Rab. “Six months after the centre started, I was here.
“You couldn’t get moving in here back then. It was the place to shop at that time, really busy.”
He’s watched from his cobbler’s counter as the centre has fallen into a decline over the last four decades. Now, he’s the only person left who was there at the beginning.
“It’s terrible now, there’s nothing left,” he says. “Three shops that are open all the time.”
So why has he never moved his shop?
“Because it’s been a good place to work,” he smiles. “We’ve always been busy, until the last couple of years. But the place has deteriorated badly.
“The doors are all boarded up. People are coming in and saying they thought the place was closed already.”
For Rab, it’s his long-standing regular customers that have kept his shop afloat.
“We do OK, we’ve got our regulars and it’s enough,” he says. “But you don’t get any passing trade.
“The artists are coming and going, but that’s not the sort of people we need.”
When the centre closes, that will be the end of Rab’s Sole and Heel Bar.
“I’m turning 70, so I’m past retirement age,” he says. “I’ll be OK. I’ve been here just to be working.”
But Rab’s shop is one of the last few of an endangered species.
“Only Timpson’s, and one shop in Lochee, do what I do,” he explains. “I’d like to see the Keiller Centre stay open. If it did, I’d stay here as long as I could.
“I like to be working, it’s home.”
Waiting for a signal: Ashkan Boyanov
Ashkan Boyanov, 34, runs family business Star Mobiles inside the Keiller Centre, just off the Commercial Street entrance.
He tells me Star Mobiles was the first mobile phone repair shop set up in Dundee, back in 2003.
“We really want to stay here, we’ve been here a long time,” says Ashkan, who hails from Bulgaria originally but has lived in Dundee for 26 years.
He is helped out in the shop often by his wife Berna and their young daughters, Alice and Celine, who have grown up as part of the Keiller community.
“We’ve had lots of good experiences here. I don’t want to move. But the centre is closing.”
Ashkan currently doesn’t know where his business will go after the Keiller Centre shuts.
“I’m looking at a place on the Perth Road, and one in Broughty Ferry,” he says. “But obviously they are very expensive.”
Does he think Star Mobiles will survive post-closure?
“We have to try,” he says. “We have no choice.”
Hoping for a miracle: Sara and Brian
Sara Docherty, from Montrose, and Brian Taylor, from Dundee, make up Order & Kaos, a shared studio unit tucked in off New Inn Entry.
The couple each pay for half of the space – designer Sara’s half is adorned with brightly-coloured flower graphics, while sculptor Brian’s half is a sawdust-filled wood workshop.
“Who says opposites don’t attract?” laughs Brian.
“My house is maxed out, his house is maxed out – we really need a space to work in,” laughs Sara.
“We looked at loads of spaces but they were all so expensive. Then we saw a thing in the paper about this place and thought we’d give it a shot.
“Kathryn invited us in for a coffee, and we moved in the next week. That was just in March this year.”
For painter and decorator Brian, creating his wooden sculptures is a labour of love. But for Sara, who runs flower-making classes and sells her designs, this space is her livelihood.
“I gave up my job last year, and I’m trying to get as much art done as I possibly can,” she says.
The pair are “devastated” to think about the centre closing so soon after they discovered their “dream come true” studio.
“We just found it and now it’s going away? Oh my God!” laments Brian.
“I can’t even say how grateful we are to have it,” adds Sara. “It feels like a bit of an underground art college here! Like a secret school.
“I don’t ever want the Keiller Centre to go.”
A special place with people at its heart
It’s clear to me in one afternoon that underneath the boarded doors and peeling paint, there’s a lot of heart left in the Keiller Centre.
In the 30th Boys Brigade Good as New charity shop, dedicated volunteers Channyn Hart, Helen Kerr, May Johnstone and Louis Groundwater organise the shop.
When Boys Brigade Captain Allan Fordyce comes in, he’s in the new minibus that the shop helped to purchase.
He tells me that without the shop contributing to activities and running costs, the Dundee boys in the brigade would be impacted.
In the middle of the empty corridor, a group of trendy young folk in Doc Martens and oversized shirts congregate around Volk Gallery, the vending machine art gallery which has proved popular with local students over the last four years.
Then, as I’m about to leave, a flurry of activity. It seems everyone (except Rab, of course) has deserted their units and flocked to one on the other side of the centre.
I follow, and find behind a heavy black curtain, a fully decked-out projection room with screen, chairs and an air of excitement.
On the screen is the new short film by Dundee musician Howie, which he recently launched on the opening night of anticipated new venue LiveHouse.
Howie, dripping with bling and adorned with a feathered hat, crams everyone in and then shows the film, to much applause.
Can the Keiller Centre’s legacy live on?
Despite its “dead” reputation, the place is positively jumping.
It’s hard to imagine where this spirited community will go when the centre closes.
But Prisma isn’t worried.
“I think I was more upset about it a year ago than I am now. Because I was thinking of all the things we wanted to do, and how we wouldn’t have time to do it,” she explains.
“But now we’re doing it all, and it’s amazing. So I’m not worrying about the future.
“I think the sense of community will always be here in Dundee, whether we have the building or not.”
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