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 non-humans—while addressing its intricacies.

The Care Pavilion invites interdisciplinary designers, architects, thinkers, activists, scholars, healers and cultural practitioners from the Global South and Global North to respond to “Care”, using the Biennale as a testing ground to re-imagine the politics and ethics of care.

The Care Pavilion manifests through a Care manifesto, Collective-care initiatives and ‘Care-full’ practices, where care—in all its complexities—will be re-imagined and re-collectivised through an intersectional perspective.

The curatorial team behind the Care Pavilion aims to emphasise the necessity of curatorial support (infrastructure) to ensure that caring (whether for, about, or with) can really flourish. The team deploy “curating” —from the Latin word curare, meaning “to care” and “to cure”— as a tool to radically expand and collectively reflect on the notion of care.

The Care Pavilion plays a special role by making many forms of care visible, serving as a practice of collective caring and curing that is accessible to everyone.

Participants (in alphabetical order):

Bihter Almaç, Priyanka Bista, The Bonita Chola, Malé Luján Escalante, Carl Golembeski, Lizzie Harrison, Farzana Khan, Luke Moffat, Jamie Perera, Marco Perry, Ruth Potts, Aslıhan Şenel, Love SSega, Felipe Viveros, Keir Williams

With special thanks to Gemma Blackshaw and Elio Caccavale.

Care Pavilion at London Design Biennale 2023 is supported by Design Trust Feature Grant.

SYMPOEISIS

We need new ways of being with one another - glimpses of liberatory abolitionist futures that show that other ways are possible. Sympoeisis explores care through practices of knowing and being: from the myths and ceremonies that have allowed people and the more than human world to converse over millenia to care as an act of renewal and resistance. Sympoiesis is a space for wild ideas, for deep listening – a place to ‘make-with’ other life-forms.

Initiator: Felipe Viveros and The Bonita Chola

Sound installation composed by Love Ssega, The Bonita Chola, Marco Perry, Carl Golembeski & Felipe Viveros

Music composed by Love Ssega, Marco Perry & Carl Golembeski

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Performance | 4:00pm-5:00pm, June 3, 2023

Ancestors in the Making. Care through Indigenous Lenses.

The Bonita Chola and Felipe Viveros

Ritual | 2:00pm-4:00pm, June 4, 2023

Dancing with the Trouble. Ritual Design in the Age of Consequence.

Dr Malé Luján Escalante, Dr Luke Moffat and Lizzie Harrison

Ritual | 2:00pm-5:00pm, June 7, 2023

The Oracle of All Beings

Dr Keir Williams

Panel | 5:30pm-6:30pm, June 8, 2023

Matters of Care: Practices of Embodied Liberation

Farzana Khan, Ruth Potts and Jamie Perera

FLUCTUATING BODIES OF CARE

Fluctuating Bodies of Care re-imagines hammam as a feminine care space and offers architec- tural gestures that urge intimacies between subjects and objects of design through a wet and hot undoing of architecture, which includes stories around spatial practices of feminine care, liq- uefaction of architecture, and sticky and slippery contacts between materials and bodies.

This series has been supported by Istanbul Technical University, Department of Architecture, Foundation for the Development of ITU, and Care Pavilion at London Design Biennale 2023.

Initiator: Aslıhan Şenel and Bihter Almaç

Installation and Film by Aslıhan Şenel and Bihter Almaç

Project Assistants: Nazlı Giriftinoğlu, Seray Rusçuklu, Büşra Balaban Performers: Seçil Yatan Gül, Gamze Yılmazel, Başak Akın

Project Advisor: Ayşe Başkurt

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Performance | 11:00am-7:00pm, June 12-13, 2023

Fluctuating Bodies of Care

Confabulations | 11:00am-12:30pm, 1:30pm-2:30pm, June 14, 2023

Liquid Architectural Gestures

Aslıhan Şenel and Bihter Almaç

Confabulations | 11:00am-12:30pm, 1:30pm-2:30pm, June 16, 2023

Spatial Practices of Feminine Care

Aslıhan Şenel and Bihter Almaç

ENTANGLED STORIES OF THE ANTHROPOCENE

Entangled Stories of the Anthropocene brings light to the complex, conflicted, and intertwined relationships shared between both marginalized human and nonhuman stakeholders coexisting in Koshi Tappu, Nepal. From mugger crocodiles, rock pythons, elephants to poachers, weavers, farmers, and fisherfolks, this series will give platform to the many voices and stories with the hopes to rewrite and recreate new collaborative multispecies stories.

In collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture, KTK-BELT studio, and Koshi Tappu Learning Grounds. This series has been supported by the Frank-Ratchye Further Fund from the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Mellon University, KTK-BELT studio, and Care Pavilion at London Design Biennale 2023.

Initiator: Priyanka Bista

Contributors from Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture, USA

Jiayin Zhi, Ankitha Vasudev, Jing Jing Wu, Brenna Robinson, Mai Tian, Ann Mulgrew, Mari Kubota

Contributors from the Vertical University Project, Nepal

Rajeev K Goyal, Ganga Limbu, Kishor Sharma, Nitesh Singh, Amrita Sardar, Anjali Chaudhary, Anish Timsina, Raj Kumar Singh, Jiwan Bishwakarma, Dorpati Mehta, Ashok Mukhiya, Gulabi Mukhiya, Chakra Timsina, Arjun Kumar Karki, Binda Devi Sardar, Anar Devi Sardar, Parwati Devi Sardar, Narayan Khatwe, Sarita Devi Sardar, Bhisma Adhikari

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June 17, 2023 | 11:00am-7:00pm

Listening to Local Stories of the Koshi, Vertical University Project

June 18, 2023 | 11:00am-7:00pm

Speculating on Multispecies Collaborations, Carnegie Mellon University

June 19, 2023 | 11:00am-7:00pm

An ode to the Late Makuna, the Elephant Don of Koshi, Priyanka Bista along with Collective Work from Nepal and Pittsburgh

June 20, 2023 | 11:00am-1:00pm

Collective Gathering, Listening and Sharing Workshop

Priyanka Bista