NIVAL Insights: Dinner in Context
Finding the everyday in the ACREA Archive
Among the thousands of items in the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment (ACREA) Archive is a document that reminds us what archives can reveal when they preserve more than just official records.
At first glance, this item appears like a standard event planning document. A printed running order for A Day of Testimonies¹, held at Project Arts Centre in 2017. The two A4 pages are annotated by artist and ACREA co-founder Cecily Brennan, with corrections and notes made in black pen as preparations for the event progressed.
On the reverse of the last page, something unexpected appears. Brennan has scribbled a shopping list for “Pasta Fusilli” with courgette, radishes, black olives, little gem lettuce, dried tomatoes, and mozzarella or feta. Below this, the heading “Salad:” is left unfinished.
A short distance further down the page, her attention returned to organising the event. Here she considered the best use of a “Shred It”² event on social media. The page captures a moment in which thoughts shifted between planning political action and what to have for dinner.
This detail of the document could have been overlooked during digitisation or excluded as unrelated to the archive’s subject matter, but this small note offers insight into how the Campaign operated. The Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eighth Amendment was founded in 2015 by artists Cecily Brennan, Alice Maher, Eithne Jordan and poet Paula Meehan. The Campaign relied on volunteers who balanced activism alongside their own artistic practices, employment, family responsibilities and everyday lives. Campaign work happened wherever space could be found: in studios, homes, and at kitchen tables.
For researchers, these traces can be as revealing as formal minutes, press releases or publicity materials. Taken on its own, the shopping list is unremarkable. Preserved in context, it becomes evidence of the everyday labour behind extraordinary social change.
Notes:
[1]. A Day of Testimonies was held at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, 26 August 2017. The event brought together artists, activists and members of the public to share personal experiences in “a day of performances, visual art and film to reflect both the complexity of the issue and the simple truth that women’s health is put at risk because of the Eighth Amendment to our Constitution.”
[2]. Shred It was an ongoing project allowing the public to participate in events. People were invited to shred a large 8 printed on A4 paper, and were filmed or photographed doing so. Artists were also invited to submit creative shredding videos.
Clare Lymer is Digital Collections Officer at NIVAL.
The INSIGHTS series allows NIVAL staff to showcase curiosities from the archives and uncover the stories within. You too can discover even more through our online catalogue or by booking an appointment to visit the Reading Room.