Totally Dublin 1
Apartheid. The Irish government eventually resort
ed to banning the sale of fresh produce from South Africa in 1987. While these events, along with other marches documented in the collection, seem distant from one another in practice, they symbolise something more significant than their singular occurrences when presented alongside each other. Collectively, they possess a spirit of resilience and defiance – the chants of a rising countercurrent to the political agenda of the time. Without the curious, creative eye of Rose and her dedicated developmental work in DIY dark rooms, these women, their testimonies and their presence at protests in this period in modern Irish history would be in danger of falling through the cracks, swallowed into the cyclone of a forgotten age. “Wherever I lived, I would set up a dark room,” Rose reflects, “It was primitive. I had learnt how to do my own printing. I loved film, and I always have a yen to go back to it.” During her early days of street photography, Rose worked at the Print Co-op of the Dublin Resource Centre, a run-down but vital hub located at Crow Street in Temple Bar, set up by volunteers. It was here that protests were organised, information was distributed, and flyers, posters, and magazines were produced. In the face of attempts at silencing the voices of dissent, DIY magazines became all the more important for disseminating information. 44 “We brought out a women’s magazine,” Rose says, on her involvement with the feminist newsletter Round Up “It was a very simple, rudimentary thing. We brought it out once a week or once a fortnight. That was how you got stuff around. Newspapers and magazines were being taken off the shelves in shops.” Rose possessed a keen eye for shots that not only documented the protests but also displayed the collective spirit and passion of the various movements. Her street photography evolved with the movements themselves. “I can’t call myself a photojournalist,” she says modestly, “That’s not really how I saw myself. I didn’t go out and get a great shot and then go to the newspapers with them. I tended to photograph all aspects.” “You’ll find in the book that there are a lot of photographs that wouldn’t be used in a newspaper, but they show a great camaraderie within the women’s movement.” The direct personal testimonies – outlining women’s memories of their time within various movements and marches covered in Acts of Defiance – complement Rose’s black and white photographs perfectly. They give life and movement to Rose’s still shots, a taster of the individual voices behind each movement, their backgrounds, and a wider contextual reflection on the great effort of organisation and personal sacrifices that went into each march. Contributors talk of finding their tribe within DIY collective groups, such as in the Sistership Dún Laoghaire, 1992 “You’ll find in the book that there are a lot of photographs that wouldn’t be used in a newspaper, but they show a great camaraderie within the women’s movement.”