To Mind Is to Care (V2_, Lab for the Unstable Media) – Reflecting on the Aesthetic Dimension of Care

Dora Vrhoci, managing assistant of MACCH and enrolled in the research master’s program Cultures of Arts, Science and Technology (CAST), assisted in organizing the exhibition To Mind Is to Care (December 2020 – January 2021) as part of her curatorial and research internship at the V2_, Lab for the Unstable Area in Rotterdam.

The exhibition was part of a two-year research project (2019-2021) centred on the aesthetic dimension of care, the starting point of which was the book “To Mind Is to Care” (2019) edited by Joke Brouwer and Sjoerd van Tuinen. The interdisciplinary project conceptualised care as a network activity through which we maintain the world around us. Art, then, is also an act of care; an act that guides our attention to what is important in the world since we are not inclined to care about something that leaves us “aesthetically indifferent” (Brouwer & Van Tuinen, 2019, p. 6).

Envisioned as a platform for participatory research and inviting the audience to mind – that is, take care of – the many nonhumans in the V2_’s exhibition space, the exhibition consisted of artworks that, in one way or another, aimed to demonstrate the different ways one can take care of other life forms, technology, or every-day materials.

The exhibition featured artworks by Ana María Gómez López, Driessens & Verstappen, Nathalie Gebert, and WE MAKE CARPETS.

Read more about the exhibition at V2_’s website.

Brouwer, J., & Van Tuinen, S. (Eds.). (2019). To Mind Is to Care. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: V2_ Publishing.