Tales of Care & Repair

Dillon, Teresa

Abstract

TALES OF CARE & REPAIR is a crowd-sourced collection of photographs, texts, interviews, events and stories about the objects we repair today. The projects associated publication 'Tales of Care & Repair' was published in 2022 and summarized the key elements of the project.

Introduction

Tales of care & repair started out life as a quick call to colleagues; the photographer and co-founder of Toxics Link, Ravi Agarwal and the artist and co-founder of Gambiologia, Fred Paulino. Our conversation began with “I’ve got an idea...” and the rest they say is history.

This was the beginnings of the project, with the call to action a response to the British Council, Creative Commissions programme for the United Nations 26th Climate Change Conference (COP26) that was held between 31st October and 12th November 2021 in Glasgow.

TALES OF CARE & REPAIR builds on multiple lines of work that since 2018 have been explored as part of Repair Acts. Repair Acts is a practice-based research programme that explores repair, care, maintenance and healing cultures in a pluralistic and collective manner. The programme is housed at the School of Art and Design and the Digital Cultures Research Centre (DCRC)7 at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol, England. The focus on repair also resonates deeply with the work of Toxics Link, an environmental non-governmental organisation that has for almost three decades been educating people and governments on the impact of hazardous waste. Gambiologia in Brazil are also well known in the field of design, media and digital art, who for over a decade have been dealing with issues of electronic waste and reuse cultures on a number of different levels.

Working together, Repair Acts (with a focus on Bristol, UK), Toxics Link (New Delhi, India) and Gambiologia (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) co-developed the TALES OF CARE & REPAIR project. In each city, we collated everyday stories of care and repair and explored what
it meant to co-create local Repair Declarations. We listened to stories from repair professionals, hobbyists and Do-It-Yourself enthusiasts. We held workshops with students, community groups and environmental organisations, and we brought together colleagues, scholars, artists, architects, designers, policy makers, climate and environmental thinkers to share their views on the relationship between our right to repair, repair practices and climate action.

From the start of the project our ambition was to collect 1,000 stories of everyday repair. This was implemented and achieved through a number of online and face-to- face events including to date: 17 workshops : 5 online conversations : a 2-day online symposium : 1 publication and a street exhibition in London. The project's initial timeline ran across 10 months: February to November 2021. As we kicked off, India’s COVID-19 numbers soared and the world headed into another set of lockdowns and restrictions. Political situations across each country were rocked not just by the pandemic but also with Brazil’s President vetoing key environmental actions that raised global alarm bells. Such home ground situations punctuated our ‘in- this-together’ attitude and the importance of international collaborations at such times.

Against this backdrop, we worked in our bedrooms, home studios and temporary offices. We shared views, introduced mums and children to each other and hosted multiple meetings. We laughed a lot, got fed up at times but kept the balls in the air, learning to juggle, as we made the project happen.

At the end of November 2021 we got the news that our project would receive a small top-up grant, which assisted in realising this publication and completing some additional workshops and documentation, all of which had to be delivered by the end of February 2022. Amid tight deadlines, an exhausting year and the last bolt of Omicron, we made it!

To achieve what we did in such a short space of time and in such conditions, it goes without saying that this would not have been possible without the support and labours of many, many people. It is a mammoth task to explore repair cultures across different cultural contexts, with different time zones, languages, holidays and approaches to life. We were acutely aware of the sensitivities and work involved here. This little project is just a stepping stone. It is a testament to the generosity and grace of a small team of collaborators and it builds on the shoulders of many other like-minded scholars, activists, designers and artists whose work came before us.

Within the timeframes and budgets given, this publication provides a little glimpse of what took place. It is not an exhaustive report on the project but instead attempts to connect to some of the wider issues at play, including those relating to the Right to Repair, the so-called circular economy and what it means to produce ethically and fairly. Scattered across this publication you will find snapshots of the work that was carried out.

More is available through our website: tales.repairacts.net.

Citation

Dillon, T. (2022). Tales of Care & Repair. DCRC, University of the West of England

• Book Type: Other
• Publication Date: Feb 23, 2022
• Deposit Date: May 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9780992711139
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9451380