Care Pavilion
Fluctuating Bodies of Care, photo courtesy to Aslıhan Şenel and Bihter Almaç.
Sympoiesis event at the Care Pavilion, image courtesy of Care Pavilion team.
Exhibition photo courtesy of Naiyi Wang
Care is ubiquitous, yet it is in a state of extreme crisis. Since 2020, the word ‘Care’ has taken on a very acute meaning in the global pandemic’s ‘state of exception’. The concepts of care – ‘caring for’, ‘caring about’, ‘caring with’ resonate in many spheres. The world has experienced ‘a discursive explosion of care’, but collective care is barely put into practice. It’s essential to respond to these ever present yet newly urgent matters of care: thinking through care in its many forms—of humans and nonhumans—while addressing its intricacies.
Care is ubiquitous, yet it is in a state of extreme crisis. Since 2020, the word ‘Care’ has taken on a very acute meaning in the global pandemic’s ‘state of exception’. The concepts of care – ‘caring for’, ‘caring about’, ‘caring with’ resonate in many spheres. The world has experienced ‘a discursive explosion of care’, but collective care is barely put into practice. It’s essential to respond to these ever present yet newly urgent matters of care: thinking through care in its many forms—of humans and nonhumans—while addressing its intricacies.
This project offers fertile ground for carefully considering ‘Care’ through multiple forms, dimensions and perspectives. It is a living collection of incentives to re-imagine the politics and ethics of care by interdisciplinary designers, architects, thinkers, activists, scholars, healers and cultural practitioners from the Global South and Global North.
- 2023
- Grantee: Naiyi Wang
Naiyi Wang is a curator and researcher, currently lecturing in Design Criticism & Curatorial Studies at d-School of China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). She served as chief curator of Care Pavilion at London Design Biennale 2023. She recently curated the inaugural Beijing Art and Technology Biennale (BATB) titled Synthetic Ecology (2022). She initiated Climate Care (2020–ongoing), an initiative dedicated to exploring the convergence of art, technology and climate change. She collaborated with World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to curate WE ARE NATURE, which is programmed with the inaugural China Climate Action Week (2022). She co-curated Material Tales: The Life of Things (in collaboration with Design Museum London) in 2021. Previously, she curated/co-curated exhibitions at Istanbul Design Biennial, London Design Festival, Milan Design Week, among many others. She is the co-author of Design Beyond the Human: Transdisciplinary Conversations About the Planet (forthcoming, Bloomsbury).