What does the notion of ‚in-betweenness‘ enable in narratives of making? Does it enhance creativity, or does it instead suggest oppression and insecurity? Around the 2000s this term was very selective with which kind of practices, materialities and collectives it referred to, coinciding with the genealogy of European applied arts and their controversial legacies in the making and unmaking of the environment. Who cares for the in-betweens, and what is the role of exhibitions in sustaining them? The lecture will elaborate on how liminality (in-betweenness), a concept coming from ritual studies, found its way into contemporary cultural production. Examining group exhibitions, several attributes of the liminal will become apparent, which continue nurturing current debates on contemporary craft.
Mònica Gaspar is a curator, writer, and lecturer based in Zurich, who explores craft and design as critical and reflective practices. She has earned an international reputation through curated exhibitions, publications, contributions to panel discussions, and the organisation of academic conferences. Her research interests include exhibitions as research tools and feminist and decolonial perspectives in design and craft. Currently, she is lecturing design theory and craft studies at the HSLU School of Design, Film and Art in Lucerne.
*The lecture will be held in English.
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Praxis of Care | 2024/25
The lecture series Praxis of Care explores the notion of care as attitudes, resistances, and narratives of making, and how these practices are embedded in various societal processes. Care time, according to sociologist Barbara Adam, is often devalued as unproductive or merely reproductive. Conventional approaches to care have shown how the work of reproduction and the maintenance of life have been historically marginalized.
The praxis of care is proposed as a way to weave together worlds, histories, and memories through the complex interplay of frictions, gestures, and interactions. Practicing care means paying attention to the unexpected vulnerabilities of entities, beings, and disciplines in a disrupted world, all of which are interconnected through complex, visible, and invisible relationships.
In the lecture/seminar, we will explore different artistic research practices that involve everyday caring activities, such as the responsibility of community building, revealing hidden efforts, and the invisible labor that lie behind systems of maintaining, making and production.