Our topic of the year 2023: Radical Care
CARE — A buzzword that is currently being used inflationarily. But despite humanitarian crises and violent conflicts worldwide, persistent gender inequality, an impending climate catastrophe and two years of pandemics, the impression has still not been gained that caring for others, oneself and the environment is really regarded and valued as elementary for the functioning of (modern) communities. At the same time, self-care as a life-style concept is the capitalization of self-esteeming behavior par excellence.
Nevertheless, self-care as a supporting principle of society does have utopian potential, even beyond the boundaries of human encounter spaces.But what competencies are needed to be able to care at all? What practices of care are there? What consequences would it have for our current social, ecological, political and economic reality if care were to be considered the defining principle? Which strategies for each other are conceivable in a functioning society? How can these be artistically reflected, examined and tested?
In addition, we would like to question existing acts of care, or the lack thereof, in the art context as well. What possibilities do we also create as an art space so that art workers who, for example, as parents or caring relatives, also perform care work, can actively participate in discourses without having to decide for one or against the other?