The Care Taker
The Care Taker is a participatory live-art installation placing an atmosphere of care, intimacy and community between strangers in public space.
The Care Taker invites people to share a care with her, particularly one they’d like to be free from, documenting the care by writing it down. Anonymous and uncensored, people speak uninhibited about topics affecting their lives. Cares offered are generous and personal, ranging from world issues, to everyday life. Displaying the collection of Cares makes visible the inner worlds of ordinary community members, offering a unique insight into people, located in time and place. Viewers find resonance, surprise and connection with the collection.
Quote: ‘Reading this makes me feel not so alone in my worries’
- community member Balaclava
Highly Adaptable
The Care Taker is highly adaptable to festivals, events and locations. The Care Taker appeals to dynamic and diverse communities, and through its positioning in public space and simple design, also has the capacity to surprise and connect less artistically engaged community members.
Design values and theatricality may be up-scaled as seen inside The Cube at The Arts Centre Melbourne forecourt, or on the street in Balaclava below:
Ask us about additional adaptations and multi-platform outcomes.
The Care Taker installation may be a tailored site responsive, sensory ritual to suit events or themes.
- Hurstbridge Bus of Care transformed the Community Metro bus, whose passengers are octogenarians, into a site for sharing oral histories.
- Mountain to Mouth extreme arts walk presented The Grounding, a ritualized, self navigated experience. Here, The Grand Caravan was transform into a cave by a highly stylised, sensory installation complete with earth floor. Eighty cares were received over one hour.
- Can be up-scaled to create a blanket of care over a city or town by placing multiple caretakers concurrently at numerous locations.
- Exhibiting The Care Collection may happen immediately in situ with the Care Taking installation, or as an additional event at a designated time and place, at an alternate location.
- Temporary public art installations may be produced and installed in response to the Care Collection. Ask about Hurstbridge Community Hub.
Presentation history:
2019: Showcase Victoria
2018: Arts Centre Melbourne, Mountain to Mouth, Thomastown Library, City of Wyndham, RMIT New Academic Street
2017: Nillumbik Shire through Living in Landscape Residency, Dandenong-various locations, Hobsons Bay Art in Public Places festival, Fawkner Festa, City of Port Phillip’s Charles St pop-up activation
2016: Carlisle St Balaclava, RMIT A’Beckett St
Photo Credits:
Photos at Charles St Balaclava and Mountain to Mouth by Theresa Harrison Photography
Photos at Arts Centre Melbourne by Bryony Jackson