Black and Tan boot polish…? There’s a whole lot more to The Souvenir Shop.Rotten Tomatoes recently compiled a list of the 100 best classic movies based on their ranking system. Balaclavas, in powder blue and pink with orange trim, for example. It makes you laugh, initially – and then you have to think what you are laughing about. Look carefully – ‘No Surrender stain remover’ shows James Connolly’s blood stained shirt worn during the Easter Rising ‘His Majesties Ltd comforting diasporic foot soak for the wanderer who seeks a better footing’ ‘On The Run embrocation for the sore and twisted limbs of the dissident thinker (apply before sleep in a safe house)’ ‘Put my grandfather back together’ bandages ‘Towards a New Republic Clear the Air vapour candle’… Just a few of the items on sale today in The Souvenir Shop. Then we all start looking more closely at what is on the shelves and we are jolted out of our reveries… The initial impression is exactly that – a rosy-hued look back on our remembered past. We are finding that many of the customers today have fond memories of O’Neill’s sweet shop recalled from their childhoods and are delighted to come in and see it back in business: we can’t resist nostalgia. Rita Duffy’s subversive commentary on the Rising and the events that led from that time towards the present uneasy ‘peace process’ includes re-interpretations of everyday items that we would expect to see on the shelves of our local shops – soap, boot polish, tinned foods, tea, sweets, packets of seeds… It all looks very normal when you walk in – with a period flavour.
Tom Clarke himself (above right) was the first to sign the Proclamation of Independence, and was a driving force behind the rebellion She has re-made or re-imagined these shops for the installation, and filled the empty shelves of O’Neill’s with an incredible array of objects – most of which are for sale.ĭublin’s 1916 Easter Rising was accompanied by widespread looting of shops: Noblett’s Confectionery (top left – Dublin City Photographic Collection) and Clarke’s Tobacconist (bottom – National Library of Ireland) were among the first casualties. We met her in the shop on the first day of the exhibition and she explained that, during the Rising on Easter Monday 1916, many shops in Dublin were looted: the first was Noblett’s Sweet Shop on Sackville Street, and another was Tom Clarke’s tobacconist shop on Great Britain Street (now Parnell Street). It’s a piece of art which includes and embraces its customers and the ‘invigilators’ who, today, are Roaringwater Journal creators Finola and Robertįinola and I are on our second stint behind the counter: we are the shopkeepers! We try to keep order as customers crowd in to look at the wares in display, all of which are designed by Rita. The atmospheric and nostalgic interior of O’Neill’s shop brought back to life by Rita Duffy (above): it displays and sells ‘souvenirs’ of the 1916 Rising and the events around it. The premises has been empty for years and stepping inside it today is stepping into the past: a shop unchanged over generations. The Souvenir Shop was first shown in Dublin earlier this year – here is a review from the Irish Times – and it’s now in the perfect setting here in West Cork: O’Neill’s old sweetshop on Townshend Street in Skibbereen. The project is conceived by Belfast artist Rita Duffy and curated by Helen Carey, and is a very unusual perspective on the 1916 Rising commemorations. The installation is The Souvenir Shop, and it’s a huge hit with visitors. This is a first – a ‘live’ blog post! I’m writing it inside an art installation running as part of the excellent Skibbereen Arts Festival.
0 kommentar(er)
