Socialised Care
Socialised care emphasises the importance of understanding caregiving from an individual responsibility to a collective practice. This principle advocates for creating spaces where caregiving is a mutual and integrated part of the community, ensuring that the work load is distributed with clear understanding of responsibilities shared equitably. Through practices like collective food sourcing, meal preparation and shared childcare, care becomes a community effort that fosters a sense of mutual support and collective responsibility.
Suggested Applications
- Map all invisible or undervalued tasks (e.g. emotional support, welcoming guests, tidying shared areas) and ensure they are distributed equitably.
- Create rotas that connect and highlight different responsibilities so everyone understands how their contribution sustains the whole project, establishing a shared sense of non-hierarchical organisation and definition of roles.
- Hold regular assemblies to plan and rotate care-related tasks, including childcare, hospitality, cleaning, and space maintenance.
- Integrate shared childcare into the studio or project model, enabling parents to access time for their work while children are cared for nearby.
- Organise communal meals or snack preparation as part of events and residencies, with shared responsibility for cooking, serving, and cleaning up.
- Build care teams responsible for supporting specific aspects of community life, such as accessibility, emotional wellbeing, or newcomer orientation.
- Offer peer training so more people feel confident taking on care-related roles, from facilitating play activities to hosting visitors.
- Ensure care work is acknowledged and celebrated publicly, for example through crediting contributors in programmes, websites, and exhibitions.
- Create feedback loops where participants can propose improvements to shared care systems, ensuring they evolve with the community’s needs.