In my practice, I explore care as a methodology to create moments and spaces around questions of how people can live and work together despite a climate that is powered by productivity, money, oppression and hierarchy. Through proposing new imaginaries of how we can care together, I want to reconfigure the values connected to collectivity, accessibility and reproductive labor — social conditions that are often taken for granted. I value care because it's a device and practice for developing and sustaining inclusion and community. My challenge is to figure out how to practice care through making, writing, gathering, sharing, researching, building—how to care in and as artistic practice.
(how to create) caring food systems (2023) - Research in how to create caring food systems. Interactive installation with audio, seeds, photos, books, tea and edible plants
Making Amaro (2022) - Sessions: Melly x Eathouse x Family Dinner
During an evening at Kunstinstituut Melly in collaboration with Eathouse, myself and Gordon H. Williams shared about our collective work Family Dinner, while focusing on the many ingredients that constitute community-based projects.
During the event, participants were able to make their own amaro (a herbal liqueur) with ingredients of their choice, while enjoying each other’s company and discussing experiences of community/collective care. Through the process of making an amaro, we learned together about combining ingredients - how to bring out the sweetness in each other, contrast with each other, nurture each other and blend into a complex whole. We used this activity to open up a discussion on collective processes, where we shared our experiences and perspectives.
Family Dinner (exhibition 2022) - This pop-up exhibition, curated and presented by myself and artist Gordon H. Williams, contains a selection of artworks inspired by our work together during the Family Dinner residency in October 2021, where we we gathered to collectively study, discuss and work with the themes of hospitality, sharing and gifts, and work together on an artist cookbook publication. 26 and 27 February, Hof van Noord, Rotterdam. https://www.instagram.com/familydinnerrotterdam
Family Dinner (publication 2021-2022) - Family Dinner centers around the creation of a collectively developed artist cookbook publication on research in reproductive labor through themes of hospitality, sharing and gifts— Not just a collection of recipes, but an experiment through recipes in the form of prints, poems, interviews and more, collected and edited in a collaborative process in relation to gathering around food. During this long term project, co-organized with artist Gordon H. Williams, we sought out collaborators to contribute toward the publication through an open dialog on the themes via an online residency program we hosted in October 2021. This project is presented as a cookbook publication and exhibition.
https://www.instagram.com/familydinnerrotterdam/
And You Plan And You Gather (film 2021) - This short experimental film is from a long term collaborative project with artist Gordon H. Williams. It documents the process of making an Amaro and the time, patience and care that goes into it. The film talks about making with what you have on hand and the careful time spent on preparing food for other people.
conditions of togetherness (our work on care), (installation 2020) - Installation including conditions of togetherness film, stools, plants and traces of my research in care. With Hache Collective and Tomi Hilsee.
conditions of togetherness (our work on care), (film still 2020) - This work evolves from a collaboration with Hache Collective, an experimental ensemble who work in inclusive and non-hierarchical modes of music creation and performance; and artist / architect Tomi Hilsee, the initiator of Tower of Love, a tower collectively built with found material and love in a quasi-squatted space in a park in Rotterdam. This work maps the collaborative process by means of a film, an online performance and my research into care. The film documents the artists' process while we work together. Beginning months before COVID-19 took hold, the events and dialogues featured in the film follow the creation of a score and a performance revolving around shared labor and friendship. It also shares the our struggles and joys as the pandemic forces us to adapt their modes of working and being together.
Transcriptions for Care (installation 2019) - These texts are a record of my actions toward people I worked with in my previous job at an art studio for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They highlight the predictability of these interactions, as well as both the happy and difficult moments within the care labor field. The text in this installation is paired with a video work that uses the language from a typical example of paper work from this job scrolling over a view looking down into a cup with a vitamin C tablet dissolving.
How could a gallery care? (installation 2019) - This work involves a wall text, a series of interventions and a notebook for sharing ideas. The text welcomes visitors while problematizing access and care in the institutional setting of the gallery. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, interventions were performed with the space itself. Ranging from cleaning, engaging with passersby, to sharing food with visitors, they aimed to generate a discourse around inclusivity in cultural spaces and institutional environments. Visitors who interacted with the text and interventions were invited to give their comments and share their thoughts in the notebook.
An Experiment in Listening (2018) - An exercise in communication. The participants must use only their sense of hearing translated into bodily sounds to communicate with the group. It could suggest how we communicate within a condition of difference and misunderstanding, which is a frequent occurrence in our systems of oppression and hierarchy. If we are really listening to each other, it is much easier to reach the possibility of mutuality, or if something cannot be agreed upon, we have a better understanding of what others are trying to say or do. This work is inspired by a piece by Gordon H. Williams, The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and the work of Pauline Oliveros.
