Caring with matter: towards new artistic forms of togetherness

Humanity’s facing extinction as a consequence of its exploitative activities towards the nonhuman world calls for new possibilities of survival and the rethinking of our relation to the nonhuman. I propose that an artistic practice that acknowledges and explores the affective dimension of human and nonhuman relations will allow for a novel perspective. In fact, guided by empathy, shared vulnerabilities between human and nonhuman entities will be revealed. And it is by acknowledging this common condition that the foundations for new alliances can be explored as forms of survival. Such actions will allow me to investigate what new possible forms of togetherness between human and non-humans could be and explore how active relations between different materials can hint at “acts of care” between entities. It is through a research-based artistic practice that such concepts formed in language can be transduced in material modes of investigation. Therefore such reciprocal exchange can foster a mode of knowledge that gives light to new insights. Finally exploring new alliances between the human and nonhuman worlds in imagining new transspecies communities will hint towards the need for a new set of ethical tools in our society, demanding more inclusive and egalitarian approaches towards the Other.