Local Know How

Being able to make, repair, reuse, forage, hunt or grow was once valued an essential facet of a communities shared know-how, often learned within the family home and locality. What can local ‘know-how’ bring to our present day understanding and recovery of more sustainable ways of living in our communities?

Lucy Lippard writes about how a sense of place can be recovered through excavating local forms of knowledge that are physically embodied and “written in the landscape or place by the people who live or lived there”.

Together with older members of the Cobh community artist Colette Lewis explored ways in which we once lived more sustainability through exchanging, sharing, and repurposing of local know-how skills and knowledge, recontextualising the necessity to be resourceful for the modern era.