The research group Circlusion Catalyst has a twofold objective. The first is to encourage us to think about what are the practical consequences of operating from care within our organisations and communities, and to propose this operating from care as linked to enveloping forms – circluding – which is opposed to the penetrating ways of inserting care at all costs. The second objective is to foster co-creation, use and exchange of tools with which to empirically use care as a principle and method of resilience and resistance in the current cultural and socio-political context.

Drawing: Antonio Gagliano.

Texts: Antonio Gagliano & Larre, from the conversations that took place in Circlusion Meeting & (Un)Screwing Care Seminar, where representatives from the collectives Plata, Conciencia Afro, KAK, Volksroom, Post Collective, Larre, along with artist Katinka de Jonge and the systemic facilitator Juliana Simoes participated.

Proofreading: Alba Mayol (English) and Alfonso Palacios (Spanish).

Design: Pol Pérez.

Print: Máquina Total (risograph) and L’Anacrònica (screen printing).

Photos of the publication: Daniel Cao.

This Glossary and the Circlusion Catalyst has been possible thanks to the intimate collaboration and trust of the following cultural collectives and artists based in Belgium and Spain:

KAK corresponds to the initials of Koekelbergse Alliantie van Knutselaars, an alliance of theater people, handy people, musicians, thinkers and other cheaters who organize their own working conditions horizontally, with the desire and a persistent need to work together. Both their working methods and the forms of presentation change from one project to another, but always understanding theater as a heterotopia and seeking to mix fiction and reality with the intention of being receptive and open to possible encounters. 

Post Collective is an autonomous platform of co-creation, co-learning and cultural activism created by and for refugees, asylum seekers, sans papiers and accomplices. It seeks to introduce a range of artistic, cultural and employment opportunities, as well as provide an overall collaborative environment for its members regardless of their legal status. The aim is to develop creative alternatives beyond the dominate systems of control and exclusion we are facing. This means facilitating the position where we do not struggle to be assimilated, but instead rethink and re-conceptualize critically a future together as community. 

Volksroom is an off-performance-studio space located in anderlecht Brussels. Is an independent space dedicated to artistic research on performance and dance. It’s an open space that invites all curious to come and visit them, and offers residencies to artists, possibilities to perform, research or to teach workshops.

Katinka de Jonge is a Belgian artist whose investigative practice focuses on reflection and definition. She is interested in what happens between the lines, and makes connections between brief conversations, archive material and unobtrusive processes in- and outside organizational structures and its surroundings. This results in (site specific) installations, audio works, multiples and publications that hold a mirror to the context in which it is presented, but at the same time transcend this. She has a broad interest in collaborative arts practice and artist-run initiatives.

Conciencia Afro is configured as a meeting space for the Afro-descendant, African and black community in Spain through their cultures. In recent years, through the festival held annually, its cultural centre in Madrid, publications and support network, Conciencia Afro has established itself as a space where African, Afro-descendant and black associations, projects and entities meet the in order to continue building a heterogeneous, transnational and strong community, creating a place of empowerment for the different voices and trajectories that compose it.

Plata is a place under construction where a common coexistence is organized. A place where the community is invited to propose lines of creation, thought and research, and in which the artists participate, as one more family, of the context. For Plata the most interesting thing is to link ourselves to as many bodies and knowledge as we can, and to elaborate what they call an ‘aesthetics of sharing’ through alternative practices and other forms of collaboration and exhibition that would be capable of developing sustainable ways of life, recovering the alliance between creation and life. 

Antonio Gagliano is an Argentinian visual artist. His projects weave together artistic practices and research, drawing on drawing and writing to explore the many ways in which knowledge emerges, is organized and disseminated. Graduated in Fine Arts from the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, he obtained a master’s degree in Critical Theory and Museum Studies from the Independent Studies Program (PEI) at MACBA. 

Larre is a feminist collective that uses cultural mediation, artistic production and research to propose processes of social transformation with an intersectional perspective. Their organization is structured by placing care at the center, which directly affects the articulation of the processes and actions they carry out, as well as the work dynamics established in the group itself. In this way, Larre seeks to generate a common and plural ground from which to point out, question and reconstruct theories and practices of/in the current cultural sector. Larre is the group that promotes the project Te( n ) Cuidado.