An Annex to Afrodita (2017) for Who Cares? Festival (2020)

The project aims to turn the time the artist spent with her child into a work of art, so that she could use the budget to cover the production costs of a new artwork commissioned by a festival focused on care work. The funds would alleviate the scarcity of productive time and  the artist’s income, in connection with the task of raising a child during the COVID-19 lockdown.

After thinking about care and following a similar process she applied for Afrodita, Güell decided to convert the time she spent with her child into goods or capital through the methodology she coined as “analytic replica.”

As the artist herself explained: “By reclaiming social and economic recognition for empathy and love, aren’t we following the productivist logic we criticise so much? Isn’t there something perverse about demanding to change fondness, passions and relationships into a value? And finally, if care work is the good, isn’t there a risk that care work becomes a goal and s/he who is being cared for turns into a mere instrument to reach that valued Good?”