Bio
Independent artist, researcher, educator, and primary caregiver to a small child.
Abstract
Traditionally, a monument can act as a memory-keeper, a locus for remembering, and a site for commemorating dominant histories chosen by those in power at the time. The validity of such monuments has been widely debated in recent years. Many rightly argue that monuments to troubled, contested histories must fall, be removed, reinvented and reassessed on a global scale. Drawing on the decade, I have been researching, critiquing and making art about the memorialization of colonial histories. This paper examines the lack of public monuments acknowledging the significance of birth-giving, reproductive labor and care-work. Special attention will be paid to those who have provided care to small children throughout the pandemic. Residing in Melbourne, Australia, one of the most locked down places in the world, I embraced the paired isolations of extended lockdowns and primary caregiving to begin making collaborative arts and craft projects with my child.
In this paper, I will be looking at combining art-making and care-work, in order to show how collaborative creative practice in the domestic space operates as memorialization, with potential for both healing and activism. I will discuss how the collaborative artworks produced with my child operate as physical representations of memory, a record of caregiving and relational connection. In conclusion, this project, by examining both monuments and caregiving, sheds new light on the under- acknowledged importance of care-work.
Acknowledgement of Country
I acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung First Nations People on whose lands I live and work. I offer my respect to their elders past and present and I acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
I am a settler Australian of English ancestry. The DNA that brought this body into being arrived on this (Australian) continent at varied times since invasion, including a convict on my maternal grandfather’s side. Most recently my maternal great-grandparents arrived from England also via the sea in the 1920s.
I was born and raised on Wiradjuri Country.
It is my understanding that the Museum of Motherhood stands on the ancestral homelands of the Tocobaga. I gratefully acknowledge them and the Indigenous communities who make their home in and around St. Petersburg today.
Monumental Care: Lockdowns, caregiving and collaborative creative practice
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