MaMA 

Different speakers, committed to community care, solidarity and organizing through on-and offline networks were invited to come together and reflect – by sharing stories and insights – on the ways in which we can create and sustain communities of care, joy, and connection. These were in order of appearance Carina Fernandes multidisciplinary creative hurricane and founder of platform Verbalism; Ali Şahin from STAR, Space to Talk About Race; Sarafina Paulina Bonita, Hêja Güler and Rae Parnell from the initiative Take Care, Take Out and Lila Athanasiadou, a cultural worker and unprofessional organizer with a background in architecture, involved in labor rights within the cultural sector and co-founder of Cultural Workers Unite. The conversation was guided by Ying Que, a cultural worker and organizer, with a background in anarchist anthropology. Wearing different hats in the worlds of art and education, she generally operates from or for a collective context and has been dedicated to the feminist and anti-racist movement for the past decade.

The questions at the center of this discussion, as well as at the center of the exhibition in MAMA were: What do we need from each other to create environments and spaces that allow us to flourish, to grow, to heal? How do we imagine radical care and make current infrastructures of care last? How can we center tenderness and healing, while also holding space for various forms of critique?

The current social and political landscape and the ongoing failures of capitalism prompted the urgency to create, organize, and intervene outside governmental infrastructures – and showed us the importance of envisioning and creating lasting infrastructures of care and solidarity. Our guests shared their stories and insights with us on January 10, 2021 and we are now happy to also share this with you.