Cactus Spoon, gwen charles
Video, 2021

This is a new video work about caregiving for a sick child.
Looking at the tasks of grooming, I have been mimicking the motions of caretaking and caregiving in the natural environment in this series of performances and videos where plants become stands-ins for the person being cared for. If we conceptualize the Earth as a body, I am also grooming the earth. Caretaking becomes earth care, community care and in turn, self-care.

Petting a spiny cactus feels very close to my caregiving experience lately. A prickly patient who wants to be cared for but bristles at the slightest offense. Still I care for the prickly patient, and consider the metaphor of being like a cactus: its protective exterior protects its soft storage of water inside, it has great endurance and strength to survive in new environments and situations. And the cactus is adaptable and strong. A reminder that we will endure and survive through the difficult seasons of our life.