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Given I’m always supportive of any initiative that showcases women and our contributions to society and culture, I have to admit to being a bit taken aback by the tone and timing of Justine McCarthy’s column yesterday on a proposed women’s museum in Ireland.
A women’s museum is a fantastic idea, especially given Ireland shameful past in abusing and mistreating marginalized and vulnerable women in gendered institutions. But why is it being promoted in opposition to govt promises to open archives and remember women’s past?
Ireland has more than enough room - and fantastic women - to create a celebratory museum of women’s achievements but that cannot be conflated with the govt’s duty to remember what they have been complicit with in the not too distant past. Those things should not be conflated.
The McAleese report proposed the creation of a memorial to the (at least) 10,000 women who were institutionalized up to the closure of the last laundry in 1996. One survivor I spoke to stated they did not want a statue ‘for pigeons to shit on’, they wanted active remembering.
It is absolutely imperative that a place of active remembering be associated with the material remains of the laundries; that we do not simply let all the laundries disappear so we have no spatial or material connection to that past that will allow those in power to forget.
A site of active remembering - or a site of conscience - is never just about remembering the past, it is also about changing the present and evolving into the future. This is why such a site needs space to maintain elements of the old with new innovations that facilitate change.
As part of the Open Heart City collective, we have been working with survivors, local communities, activists and heritage professional to conceive of a multi-use site of conscience at the former ML Sean MacDermott Street. The site has to remember the past but change the present.
A major focus is to create an archive that will bring together, hold and collate papers relating to their lives. The types of papers that have been hidden, closed, lost and / or destroyed for countless survivors before now. You can read more on the website http://openheartcity.ie
I have mainly been working with museum professionals and architects to consider how we integrate old with new; how we enable people to visit the most meaningful parts of the former laundry or just access the proposed archive, as they wish. It will not be a ‘shrine to trauma’
Already exciting projects have been created, including how we digitally represent the site to facilitate the stories of survivors to be the focus. This includes the amazing http://atlasoflostrooms.com - which has digitally recreated the demolished laundry through survivors’ stories.
The Taoiseach stated it was the Government’s intention to create an institution that would act as a repository for records related to mother-and-baby homes, Magdalene laundries and industrial schools; the need for such an archive is paramount and should be meaningfully located.
