Towards an Aesthetics of Care

This article is an enquiry into the possible shape of an aesthetics of care drawn from the experience of looking after a Congolese colleague after he was injured in a massacre in the DR Congo. The mix of different professional and personal circumstances directs the writing towards concerns with the ethics and aesthetics of caring for others, and how these relationships might provide a productive orientation for work in the field of community-based performance or applied theatre. The article explores debates within feminist care ethics to argue that the relations that emerge in many arts projects can be understood as forms of affective solidarity and mutual regard that, in turn, could be powerful counterweights to the exclusions and disregard in a careless society.