On Friday November 26th, The Complex played host to the launch of the Working-Class Writing Archive.
Six writers from the archive shared their work to a live audience in The Ground Floor Gallery, introduced by founders Emma Penney and Sophie Meehan.
The idea for the archive was born out of a discussion that Penney and Meehan had at a poetry talk. The pair reflected on the fact that an abundance of working-class art remains hidden from view and decided to do something about it. They put a call out for submissions from people who identify as working-class, and began receiving stories, poems, film scrips and spoken word pieces.
The pieces are catalogued on The Working-Class Writing Archive website and can be accessed through an interactive map, showcasing the output from different areas. Paul Dunne, a fiction writer from Tallaght told the Dublin Inquirer that he hopes to use the archive to find work describing other parts of Dublin. “I like the idea of someone potentially doing the same with Tallaght."
Meehan hopes that the archive will contribute to changing the narrative surrounding what is considered important work. The collection is continuously growing, and submissions are still open. According to Meehan “the collection we launch with wont be the end of it, it’s just the beginning”.
The Working-Class Writing Archive is funded by The Arts Council, and supported by Poetry Ireland. You can contact the archive here.