CARE LAB
Care is complex and unravelly. Dictionary: Care is “serious attention or consideration applied to doing something correctly or to avoid damage or risk”. Care is 2-way and reciprocal. Care is open communication and making no judgment. Care is Love. Care is the process of protecting someone or something and providing what that person or thing needs.
What is Care?
CARE COLLABORATIONS
How do we create conditions for building and sustaining care-centred collaborations? Care-caution Care-control Care-prescription Care-contingency Care-intervention Care challenge Care code Care shift Care gift Care care
Poem by Deanna Rodger
“an affective connective tissue between an inner self and an outer world, care constitutes a feeling with, rather than a feeling for, others.” - Hobart and Kneese, Radical Care: Survival Strategies for Uncertain Times
Reflections Reflections from Suzanne Alleyne, Care Lab Facilitator Moving between spaces and working with our worst fears The common theme of tensions and opposites came up immediately. Dre started by talking about the challenge of giving this provocation by “moving from a producer’s space into an artist’s face, and suddenly looking at themselves as an artist”. This got me thinking about each of us as individuals and the challenges of thinking and doing care. There are all the outside tensions budgets, time lines, deadlines, reporting and process procedures - but there is also the tension and challenge within ourselves. Part of Dre’s provocation explained to us, the participants, what clown practice is: “basically the clown nose is the is the smallest mask and what it allows us to do is remove the mask that we have in the world and put on this other tiny, tiny little mask, which enables us to be our most vulnerable self”. I wonder how care would look and feel differently if we could all be our most vulnerable selves, knowing that we would be cared for in our process of revealing what we need. How could this human-centred approach apply to everyone in the creative process? And it feels important to come back to that theme of what is harmony for one is discord for another - for Dre just thinking about the notion of care is a really heavy subject that brings out visceral and seemingly painful feelings, which is why she finished by asking “can we have more conversations to address issues around care and drive change without it feeling heavy tackling it seriously whilst holding it lightly”.
Moving Forward By Suzanne Alleyne I was left with the overriding question from these provocations: How do we take action whilst listening to our bodies and emotions and the bodies and emotions of those around us? How do we not become rooted in the fear of failure? What is tension and what is lack of care? Where do the two meet and overlap and for whom, how and when? Why is care important between artists and organisations and beyond, funders, wider society? Three prompts to begin Sidenote: Focus on what resonates with you but if you feel a desire to run from something, in this moment, try to think about sitting with your feelings and examining them.
Care and disruption: Asking to work with embedded care is fundamentally disruptive. How can we reduce fear around this to encourage disruption? Relationship: Usually there is a transactional relationship between artist and commissioner. How might a brief centre care rather than have a separate agreement? Change: All systems need review in order to centre care. In what ways can we use what we have more usefully? How can we communicate if systems are not fit for purpose? How can we start again?