The harshest of lights shines on the question of care in the age of neo-liberalism and globalisation: who gets it, who needs it, who does it, who controls it. The Care research group at the Royal College of Art works in this light to ask how to care for human bodies in the inequitable societies COVID-19 has re-inscribed, through the activation of creative research practices as means of caring. Reflecting on the care phenomenon of 2020/21, the group invited the editors of ON CARE (MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE, 2020) to return to their book conceived before the pandemic. As part of that discussion, the group was asked to consider what is lack of care and what lacks in care. Their responses form this supplement to ON CARE, working with what was at hand, with what was missed, forgotten, neglected, ignored: CARE(LESS).

Contributors: Sohaila Baluch, Gemma Blackshaw, Anja Borowicz, Caroline Douglas, Shannon Forrester, Marita Fraser, Nora Heidorn, Ameera Kawash, Sofie Layton, Joshua Leon, Xiaoyi Nie, Amy Peace Buzzard, Ilona Sagar, Dafne Salis, Adam Walker, Sharon Young, Shuye Zhang

This short text brings Mary Shelley's Frankenstein into conversation with the invention of photography. It suggests William Henry Fox Talbot’s moment of photographic discovery was born from gendered anxiety. In doing so it also turns to the work of chemist and protophotographer Elizabeth Fulhame (fl.1794), and how she foresaw her own silencing and reflected on her position as a gendered intruder. The piece dispels the notion of ‘firsts’ in photography and instead points to the unquantifiable invisibility of labour in early photography. A personal voice cuts throughout the piece which rocks between the joys, pain and boredom of early childcare.

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