Towards a Feminist Care Aesthetics

Artwork by Dr Elena Cologni: A small piece of fabric with the embroidered label 'persons are relational' above it

This platform, led by Dr Elena Cologni, aims at researching feminist care aesthetics, most recently through the project Mother Art Collective: Towards a Feminist Care Aesthetics, winner of the Getty Research Institute Grant 2023.

Relevant outputs include:

From The Home To The Planet. A Dialogue Between Elena Cologni And Mother Art Collective, exhibition at MLAC – Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea, Sapienza Università di Roma (October-November 2025)

Cologni, E. (2024). Mother(ings): From the home to the planet. A dialogue between Mother Art Collective and Elena Cologni. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 25 (si1.6)

Cologni, E. (2024). Percipience, embodiment, contamination(s). The artist as wound. Practicing a feminist care aesthetics. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 25 (si1.25)

Image credit: 'Mother's Tools', © Elena Cologni, 2018 (one of four: wood, steel, custom-made fabric labels, printing tools from the artist’s mother’s embroidery kit, 20cmx20cm each, the artist’s collection. The labels read: CARE AS SUPPORT; RESPONSIVENESS TO NEED; PERSONS ARE RELATIONAL; UBUNTU).

This draws on Dr Cologni’s previous research practice and publications on care ethics, motherhood and situated approaches. These include:

Cologni, E. (2023) 'Towards a Feminist Care Aesthetics (To Put Every Meaning Up-down, Behind-front, Top-bottom), in Maternity and Care’ colloquium at Drew University (NY) with van Nistelrooij, I., and Miller, M., chaired by Visse, M.

Cologni, E. (2020) 'Caring-With Dialogic Sculptures. A Post-Disciplinary Investigation into Forms of Attachment', PsicoArt – Rivista Di Arte E Psicologia, 10(10), pp. 19-64.

Practices of care as ecofeminist and spatialized art (Artist International Development Fund, Arts Council England and British Council 2018/19; Artist-Newsletter Bursary 2019; Quality Research funding, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, ARU) on women, labour and architecture. Including Elena Cologni: Pratiche di Cura o Del Cur(v)are, solo show (2021) curator Gabi Scardi, at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice.

CARE: From periphery to centre, for the 250th anniversary of Homerton College (University of Cambridge), resulting in a permanent sculptural commission (Research Excellence Framework 2021 submission) including Keene, M., Held, V., Cunningham, P., Scardi, G. and Cologni, E. (2020) 'CARE: From periphery to centre', Homerton College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. Documentation available on Figshare.