Congress lineup

Natalie King (AICA Australia) – Who cares? Creating, curating, criticism and care

How can care be an interdependent modality? What is the role of ongoing care in these times of crises? Can we orchestrate a collective closeness through systems of care? How can care be deployed as a foundational network and ecosystem that actively reconfigures relationships? How can the rubric of care be understood at the heart of cultural relations: to artists, each other, community, artworks and audiences, writing and listening? What are the potential asymmetries of care?

The etymology of care is derived from the Latin word curare meaning to cure, heal, and curate. So what are the intertwinements of curating and caring, art criticism and listening? Whether ruminating on viral care and collective care within cultural institutions, intimate bodies, healing, and or love and feminism, to care is to recognize all bonds, between both humans and non-humans; between humans and their systems, their infrastructures and institutions, and to attend to their fragility, carefully.

In this paper, I will review the current discourse around ‘care’ as a methodology as well as discuss my curation of Yuki Kihara: Paradise Camp as the first Pasifika, fa’afafine or transgender artist to represent Aotearoa New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale 2022. In the companion publication, I commissioned Pacific writers, poets and activists to provide a compendium of writing and art criticism that takes care of Pasifika perspectives, voices and ways of being from Oceania.