COLUMN: Repair Acts – Tales of Fixing and Mending
In 2022 Repair Acts, Ireland was established as a way to foster vibrant and restorative repair cultures in Ireland by connecting past stories about mending and fixing things, with what we do today, to how we envision the future.
Over the coming weeks in the build up to our ‘Caring for Repairing’ Exhibition and Féile in Kilbeggan (November 3-6), we will be contributing a weekly digest on repair, care, maintenance to the Westmeath Examiner.
These snippets reflect on 10 months of extensive work across Westmeath. From Kilbeggan to Ballina, Glasson to Castlepollard, Horseleap, Athlone and Mullingar, we gathered a number of stories from communities, student groups, families, repair enthusiasts and experts, DIY hobbyists and passionate amateurs on their views about the things we can and cannot repair.
Alongside that work, we mapped histories of local repair economies in Westmeath since the 1930s and we’re currently creating the ‘People’s Archive of Everyday Repair’, an ongoing online photograph archive that captures images of repairs and their associated motivations.
So far people have uploaded pictures of furniture, toys, garden equipment, household items, clothes and shoes, electronic good, bicycles and even homes they have repaired.
People have told us how and why they repaired the item and what matters to them in the future – how can repair, fixing and mending be easier for everyone. As one person who submitted a photography of their repair noted, ‘Repairing stuff yourself is good for the brain. Lots of problem solving. Keeps the mind active.’
We encourage you to upload pictures of something you have repaired, share your repair stories and your thoughts on what would constitute Ireland’s First Repair Declaration.
So what does it mean to create Ireland’s First Repair Declaration?
Declarations are statements, often used in law or in public contracts, to illustrate one’s views or values. We consider our Repair Declarations as a set of intentions, actions or statements that look at how we can develop more vibrant, local repair cultures in Westmeath and also across Ireland.
Statements collected so far include people’s views on the need for educating and developing more repair-based skills, reducing the cost of repairs, tackling in-build planned obsoletism and creating more opportunities for accessing professional repairers, to name but a few. We are currently compiling all the statements gathered and will look to generate a single declaration which expresses the main views.
Our Repair Declaration is also inspired by others who have created similar documents, including that by artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles, ‘Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969!’, which promotes ‘maintenance’ and everyday acts of care as central for sustaining life, in contrast to the continual drive for the new and avant-garde as a measure of success and ‘progress’.
In 2009 the Amsterdam based collective Platform 21’s, Repair Manifesto notes how repair is a creative challenge that requires designers to produce goods that consumers can easily repair and that last longer.
The American e-company iFixit, whose how-to website sells repair parts and publishes free wiki-like online repair guides for consumer electronics and gadgets, are well known for promoting and demanding changes to how people repair our goods.
One of the founding companies of the Right to Repair movement, iFixit’s Repair Manifesto (circa 2010) states that we have the right to spare parts, documentation and manuals and the right to choose who can repair our goods.
In 2018 during the FixFest international gathering of community repairers and tinkerers, activists and policy-makers, the Manchester Declaration was created, requesting that legislators and decision-makers at all levels, as well as product manufacturers and designers, stand with us for our Right to Repair.
To add your view on what should go into the Declaration and to contribute to our ‘People’s Archive of Everyday Repair’, we encourage you to go to our website: repairacts.ie and upload your story.
You can also check, via the website, our ‘Caring for Repairing’ programme and free mending activities, conversations and performances.