Ethnic Women’s Stories through Crafts

In 2014 Ethnic Women’s Stories through Crafts (EWSTC) brought together seven women from Nigeria, China, the U.S., Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland in a project that reached over one hundred people. The stories shared through the project were of memories evoked by the preparation of food and of smells and tastes. They are captured in a documentary which can be obtained from Creative Spark.

This year the aim of the project is to run a pop-up bistro event in the centre of Dundalk. The focus of this pop-up bistro will be the sharing of healthy food, recipes, stories and craft skills with the wider community. The lead up to this event will be a twelve week ceramics and storytelling project held in Creative Spark to continue the work started by EWSTC in 2014. The project is open to new and old participants and the deadline for applications is 18th September.

We hope to encourage local ethnic and indigenous food shops to get involved in the pop-up bistro event by hosting similar events themselves in December. Using a location near the centre of Dundalk we will create a lively bistro to which people can drop in, have some food, pick up healthy recipes and share their food-inspired stories. We will also run ceramics workshops and hold a screening of the 2014 project’s documentary at the pop-up location.

Our goals are:

  • To run a 10 week project with previous and new members
  • To help participants develop their skills with a view to producing saleable items
  • To run a pop-up bistro in the centre of Dundalk and reach a wide audience with this
  • To produce a booklet of healthy recipes for audience members to take away with them
  • To involve local ethnic and indigenous food shops to run events concurrently with the pop-up bistro
  • To run free ceramics and story-telling workshops in the space for the public to take part in