International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: van der Vlugt, M. (2024). When touching becomes contact. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 25(si1.12). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea25si1.12

For the research study In Search of Stories (ISOS), an interdisciplinary group of artists was invited to co-create an artwork with terminal cancer patients. ISOS was set up as a multidisciplinary research project to monitor the change in the experience of contingency of participants in cocreation, and, in the long run, of innovating education and health care contexts. Contingency is an often extreme, life-changing experience, like living with a terminal condition. My cocreation in ISOS became part of my PhD project in which I, an artist-researcher, investigate aesthetic interaction with materialities (bodies, objects, spaces) through the lens of Touching. I analyzed how the method of Touching generated care. I examined How the touching of materialities (bodies, objects, spaces) unfold into contact, emerging into forms of care between artist, participant and material? In this article, I present one co-creative ISOS process I facilitated, and critically analyze through Joan Tronto’s phases of care (2017). I investigate what forms of care between artist, participant and material emerge, discussing challenges related to aesthetics, ethical issues, and working within different spaces. I will focus on how physical contact with materials like cloth, clay and (bio)plastics influence and shape the care practice of the participant and me, sharing the various artistic strategies and questions used to create non-hierarchical and emergent forms of collaboration in the context of care.