Care Performance,
Live Performance with Hospital Bed and Participants, 2019

Care is a performance work where the artist places the participant onto a hospital bed. The work displays the nuances of care between the carer and the care receiver as a continual negotiation. The hospital bed is a crucial instrument used in the medical treatment of the body. Often, at times of crisis, urgency, and stress, the body is placed on the bed to be investigated and assessed for survival. In contrast, once the situation is stable, it is also used to rest and heal. The duality of the hospital as a space brings a confrontation to an able body that does not need urgent care.

In this work, I remove their shoes, help lift their legs onto the bed, cover them with the hospital sheets and secure the railings on either side. Once these are secured, the artist lifts the bed as high as it will go, commonly used to roll the care-receiver into another position, toileting and other comfort-providing tasks. Once the participant is in place, the artist pulls down the railing and holds the participant for as long as they want. The intimacy of this work allows conversations around the difference between institutional care and informal care. Institutional care or medicalised care practice focuses on the body's functionality and medicalised measurements.

Informal care is predominately given and received between family members, spouses or friends. This care has a knowing of a person, touch, favourite clothes or food. It is supportive of the medical care provided by the hospital. The understanding of care depends on the needs of the other and requires communication. It is also dependent on if a person has this available. There is also a learning and understanding of the body of the cared for and how to provide comfort. Using touch and holding the audience member, I try to reperform this space as care that looks after the heart of the body, emphasizing the power of physical connection in providing comfort. The action questions the way in which we care for bodies in hospitals with the boundaries and limitations that surround medicalised care.

Instructions: