The Caretakers is a meeting space where we can share a meal with members of our community. Here, we will see many who we already know well, but there will also be those that we occasionally pass at the shops - those who we have not had the opportunity to meet because we move in different circles. Because our children attend different schools, because we play different sports, are of different generations, or because we have different religious or political beliefs.
It is a safe, comfortable and welcoming place where we meet as friends and as equals. The food is free. It is prepared and served with care by friends, and for friends. We sit at the same tables with the same meals. We all create an atmosphere where we are free to speak and where we can listen.
The space is named after the thirteen collective caretakers - forming a diverse group of community development workers, political and community activists, gardeners and cultural custodians - whose work in Dublin 8 has inspired and informs the creation of this new space.
Just as they have, we hope to build a community of care around this space. A community that cares for you - and one you can care for. A community of caretakers.
The Caretakers will be operating between the 3rd to the 27th of November at 52A Bulfin Road, Inchicore, Dublin 8, D08 YR89 (De Mazenod Centre).
It will be open every weekday except for Wednesday, between 10:00am and 2:30pm. Lunch will be served from noon with cakes and hot drinks offered at all times.
FREE. ALL WELCOME.
The Caretakers is a socially-engaged art project led by Australian artists Elizabeth Woods and Kevin Leong, with Arrernte* chef Tanika Orr, in partnership with Common Ground in Inchicore.
In 2020, Elizabeth and Kevin started a project at The Social Space in Brisbane, Australia that placed community food production, preparation and service, and the sharing of free meals as centrepieces of a social meeting space. The project generated a lively, diverse and egalitarian community space where people from a wide range of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds intermingled, where the queer community interacted with traditionally socially-conservative cultures, and where rough sleepers could genuinely speak to local politicians or community leaders as equals. The space quickly evolved into one run by energetic volunteers and became the centre around which many other new community initiatives grew.
Building on the Brisbane project, The Caretakers takes inspiration and advice from the work of thirteen community caretakers working in Dublin 8: Anna Drews, Eilish Comerford, Conor Courtney, Brian Crowley, Veronica Dyas, Rita Fagan, Pauline Goggin, Phil Kearney, Jo Kennedy, Tony MacCarthaigh, Tony May, Mary Pierce and Peadar Rice.
The Caretakers also brings Tanika's practice as a caretaker of cultural knowledge and practices to Inchicore, where her bushtucker** sensibilities will meet Irish ingredients and tastes.
* Culture indigenous to Central Australia** Food foraging, cultivation, preparation and consumption based on Australian indigenous practices