Alleviating anxiety: Care in action during the pandemic

Abstract

This chapter discuses the rolling process of redesigning Care in Action within the tightening of finances and COVID-19-safe regulations at the Australian National University to consider how neo-liberalism and capitalism-induced anxiety might be articulated, and even resisted, through the care-based practices of the participating artists. Re-orientating the exhibition precipitated own ethics of care to be put into practice. The new aim of Care in Action is to trace and record connections and tensions between paid and unpaid labour and contribute to the recognition of unaccounted for care-work as labour. The cloth nappies will take the shape of the toddler's body, and the cloth will carry evidence of the repetition, time and care required to sensitively navigate this childhood milestone. For Care in Action, Kylie Banyard will paint on the cloth as if on canvas in response to the marks and colours left by the indigo plant to open up new relations of care between place, people and action. Show more