Aron Hill

Care and Separation:
Thinking about care as a relational aesthetic art practice within a colonial structure.

Canadian Minister of Parliament and activist Mumilaaq Qaqqaq spoke in the houses of parliament stating that, “Colonization is not over. It has a new name. Children are still being separated from their communities. Foster care is the new residential school system. The suicide epidemic is the new form of Indigenous genocide,”

I remember at art school a teacher during a lecturer pulling out one of those massive foam hands that are used at sporting events. The hand is supposed to indicate ‘#1’ with the index finger out and the rest in a fist. The teacher used it to point to something on the slide that they wanted to draw attention to. This bit of theatrics was to demonstrate that it was not only what was being pointed at but also who, how, and what was doing the pointing that needed reflection. I want to draw attention again to Sara Ahmed’s “double turn” in that the “task of the white subject” is “to stay implicated in what they critique, but in turning towards their role and responsibility in these histories...as histories of this present, to turn away from themselves and towards others.” And as Decter and Taunton go on to say that “For the white settler subjects staying implicated necessitates a practice of self-reflection, an inward turn that is both critical and unflinching.” Regardless of what I have written or what sort of care we have given I am still implicated and will always be so. I see this implication as not shame or guilt but rather an impetus to relate better.