Care Aesthetics: For artful care and careful art

Care Aesthetics is a full-length book that explores the work of carer artists and artist carers to make the case for the importance of valuing and supporting aesthetically caring relations across multiple aspects of our lives. It outlines the implications of care aesthetics for the socially engaged arts field and health and social care, and for acts of aesthetic care in the everyday.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 168 pages
Publication date: 19 July 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

What if the work of a nurse, physiotherapist, or home care worker was designated as an art, so that the qualities of the experiences they create became understood as aesthetic qualities? What if the interactions created by artists, directors, dancers, or workshop facilitators were understood as works of care?

Care Aesthetics is the first full-length book to explore these questions and examine the work of carer artists and artist carers to make the case for the importance of valuing and supporting aesthetically caring relations across multiple aspects of our lives.

Theoretically and practically, the book outlines the implications of care aesthetics for the socially engaged arts field and health and social care, and for acts of aesthetic care in the everyday. Part 1 of the book outlines the approaches to aesthetics and to care theory that are necessary to make and defend the concept of care aesthetics. Part 2 then tests this through practice, examining socially engaged arts and health and social care through its lens. It makes the case for careful art exploring the implications of care aesthetics for participatory or applied arts. Then it argues for artful care and how an aesthetic orientation to care practices might challenge some of the inadequacies of contemporary care.

This is a vital, paradigm-shifting book for anyone engaged with socially engaged arts or social and health care practices on an academic or professional level.

Weight: 330g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032196169