The Covid-19 pandemic has further exacerbated existent inequalities worldwide. The cultural sector, which is very often described as precarious work, is one of the worst hit. The arts have been particularly hit hard by the pandemic in Inclusiveness Target, and Near Neighbour, countries, where governments provide minimal, if at all, financial support to creative practitioners and NGOs. More than just affecting the cultural production of these particular countries, there are international ramifications in that the rest of the world is also denied easy access to creative/technological advances and innovation that still takes place in the former – in other academic or other contexts. It is, then, especially relevant and timely to form critical networks of care within the creative industry of support communities. An interdisciplinary group of creative practitioners, academics, researchers and arts/crafts organisations that specialise in creative technologies and that have considerable experience in the production and dissemination of this kind of knowledge across Europe and internationally, have come together to form a “critical network of care”. The Action’s network will collaborate to share their collective expertise and technical knowledge employed in creative ways to develop knowledge and methodologies of care. The main aim is to produce a well formulated and integrated TOOLKIT OF CARE and comprising articles, prototypes, audiovisual documentation, technical manuals, theoretical analysis, prototypes, and data. It will act as a model of how to successfully share knowledge and expertise across different geographical regions and social groups.

Visit Toolkit of Care dedicated website.

Toolkit of Care is pivots on affairs of care in media arts in a pragmatic manner. In this context Care is understood with respect to very different actualisations henceof that bring forth ethical, social, political, and cultural implications. Broadly, care in this context concerns all we do to maintain, sustain and repair our world; that is, it concerns our bodies, our selves, and our environment as well as sophisticated ways to interweave the former. In this context, Toolkit of Care concretely advocates an ‘Aesthetics of Care’, that is a process concerning ethically responsible action, informed/activated by sensory experience, entailing a caring for ourselves, others and the planet, and shaped by aesthetic understanding, artistic practice, crafts, and creativity. Under these premises there can be many different Vectors of Care (self-care, care for the (more-than-)human other, politics of/as care, (dark-)ecology, and others) and many subareas thereof that relate to arts and culture (art therapy, healthcare for artists, healthcare as art, parenthood/family affairs, accessibility/inclusivity in arts, radical/utopian politics, curatorial practices, DIWO, pandemic aesthetics, data-care, etc).

Toolkit of Care very much follows a pragmatic/practical route into tackling the above, providing grants to young researchers, radical ‘thingers’ and thinkers, and other non-privileged individuals, and funding all sorts of local and international events, meetings, and training schools with a special emphasis in OFF-centred regions or societal groups. Toolkit of Care is proudly feminist and decolonial.

Toolkit Of Care research proceeds in four distinct working groups: Sharing Care; Care in Visual and Performing Arts; Analysis, Theory & Politics Of Care; Publishing And Archiving Care. Several different kinds of activities are organised in the context of the different working groups. To boot, Toolkit of Care hosts an annual Conference and an annual Roundtable.