OIKOS: A Cultural Analysis of Care and Crisis in the 21st Century

In the age of climate change, Earth’s status as a stable, customary point of reference for the ways human beings make a home, taking care of each other and of our surroundings, is diminishing. Environmental crisis can, consequently, be understood a crisis of care. Titled for the ancient Greek name for a household, OIKOS investigates the nexus of care and crisis at the level of culture. Through a cultural analysis of selected contemporary works of art in the practices of visual art, sound art, literature, and performance, we seek to explore care work in the light of the environmental crisis, and environmental crisis in the light of care work. The research questions are: How do artworks portray care work in the shadow of the planetary predicament? And how do they perform care work? In order to address these questions and to conduct the analysis, the research project proposes the concept of care genres. By focusing on the three care genres of parenting, maintaining, and regenerating, OIKOS shifts the perspective from the existence of climate change to human existence inside it, placing care, crisis, and culture at the forefront of ecological thinking.