Creative care : Modelling caring practices through artistic collaborations in neurodiverse and palliative-care contexts

Care ethics is concerned with the inequalities and imbalances in caring relations and “The Two Cathies” provides unique insights on how care can be embedded in collaborative partnerships to promote a care perspective on social systems of power. Feminist philosopher Berenice Fisher and political theorist Joan Tronto have defined four “ethical elements of care”, “attentiveness, responsibility, competence and responsiveness.” Care ethics is central to this agenda and lays the foundations for our creative relationship, where care is embodied and practised through the common language of art. “The Two Cathies” creative partnership demonstrates how care ethics can provide a valuable conceptual framework for thinking about neurodiverse/neurotypical interactions that foreground the distinction between the reciprocity of care in personal relationships and transactional forms of paid care in supported art studio settings. The artist reacts to her bodily difference, not as a disorder to be feared or that should be fixed, but something to celebrate, and immortalise through her creativity.