Culture
07 Jul 17

Not At Home Ireland is creating art from women's abortion testimonies

New art project aims to connect women who have had to leave Ireland for safe abortion services

Not At Home is a durational art campaign started by Emma Fraser (Nine Crows) and Grace Dyas (THEATREclub) aimed at giving voice to the thousands of women and girls who have travelled from Ireland to find safe abortion services somewhere else.

According to the Irish Family Planning Association, 170, 216 women went abroad to access abortion clinics from January 1980 to December 2016. The new art project in progress will highlight reprecussions of Ireland’s abortion laws and create a community among women who have “travelled in solidarity.”

From a collection of anonymous testimonies and a crowd sourced text of women’s recollections, the founders will create a multi-media expression of the women’s experiences through video, sound installation and live performance.

In a statement on their website’s homepage, Not At Home Ireland wrote, “The piece is grounded in the artistic intention is to attempt to collect, represent and make visible every story, every experience of those 163,514 women [the estimated number through December 2014]. That is our task for the process and the performance. We will continue to gather stories, and women will be able to contribute their story to the archive at the installation.”

The group is also pushing back against pro-life group, The Irish Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, who are planning graphic protests outside the Dublin and Cork airports. Not At Home Ireland published a document promising support should the pro-life protests go forth. The counter demonstration plan is “to stand near to the ICBR protestors with banners and placards offering messages of love, acceptance and support to women who are travelling….Every day that they are there, we will be there for Irish women who cannot have this procedure at home. We will be saying; We see you. We support you. We offer you love, strength and solidarity on your journey.”

The Not At Home exhibit will arrive in September at the NCAD Gallery. For more information on the project or the counter demonstration, check out their website here.