During my residency at the Thealit Arbeitszimmer I would like to investigate collective stagings of care work in order to research common copings of care activities - especially that of human dairy work. For this purpose, I would like to separate known (art historical) representations of care work from the isolation of those engaged in it, in order to search for a dissolution of this isolation and segregation in the sense of an "Art of Emergency".
Work project: Nursing together
In a kind of tableau vivant, mothers* and other parents perform various collective scenarios and gestures of care work that are captured as photographs and thus allow a marginalized group in particular to appear performatively, which otherwise acts in the private sphere.
This form of performance aims to counter the centuries-old art historical tradition of isolated representations of mother-child dyads in pictorial spaces and displays. In 1968, the artist Lea Lublin presented the interactive performance Mon Fils (My Son) at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, in which she exhibited the care work for her eight-month-old son in the museum space. Visitors were invited to participate in the daily life of a mother* with a child. Following her position, I would also like to present care activities in the public space and expand them with a collective component.