Beatrice Cera

Possibilities of Co-Existence is a series of workshops to visualise and talk about care, community and belonging. The workshops aim at generating conversations and connections between the participants’ care networks, employing photographs as starting points. Prior to the session, I invite who will take part in it to send me a selection of photographs that answer — for them — a question related to our presence as individuals in a complex society (i.e. How do you care, and for whom? or What does make you feel the contrary of anxiety?). The session starts with the pile of printed photographs on the middle of the table. During the workshop, participants are asked to reflect on their care networks and the significant bonds that link them to other human and non-human beings. The participants are encouraged to reflect on their notion of care and co-existence, and to interact with their own collection of images and those of the other participants. 

The project is based on collaborative practice, and focused on the process rather than the outcome. For this reason, finding the way to create a documentation that could to some extent communicate this process was a challenge. The photographs, the writings, bits of audio recording, and my notes become, in the aftermath, elements that I re-elaborate and re-contextualise in order to make the space and time of the workshops meaningful and accessible for a public that did not take part in them. In the resulting installation I have the opportunity to continue the stream of conversations on care and co-existence with the visitors who pass by.