But we are always fixing things. Fixing, repairing and maintaining objects is essential, even vital to everyday life. Our ‘Right to Repair’ the objects should be a necessary given as it empowers us to take care of our tools and things by demanding good design and addresses issues relating to planned obsoletism. Repairing things can support local economies and crafts persons and when we mend something, we love or care for it also contributes to our wellbeing and autonomy in the world.
Celebrating and spotlighting such everyday care – REPAIR ACTS, Ireland gathers stories of how we fix everyday things. It will do this by looking at how we repaired things in the past, to how we do it now and how we will repair things in the future.
Connecting histories of repair to what we do today and tomorrow. We will be speaking to people about their memories of how we used to fix things locally. Mapping instances of repair through various archives, we will be creating new cartographies of local repair practice, exploring how people in Westmeath used to repair anything from thatching roofs, to tinsmithing, weaving and mending baskets and cloths.
To collect stories from the present, we aim to collect 1,000 stories of how people from across the county fix their everyday objects. These stories will become part of a contemporary repository of objects that will be exhibited as part of our installation.
Looking to the future, from 3-6th Nov 2022 we will be creating a site-based installation in the village of Kilbeggan that draws on all our activities and speculates on future repair narratives.
Leading conversations about the role repair can play in society and climate change, over 2022 we will also be hosting a number of storytelling events and workshops. During which we will be collecting aspirational statements for how to foster more local repair mindsets in towns, villages and neighborhoods. These statements will help us to create a generative Repair Declaration, which we will launch as part International Repair Day on 15th October 2022.