O N C A 2021 Programme Announcement

Making Care

We’re excited to announce ONCA’s 2021 programme: Making Care.

Making Care is being woven together in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the social and ecological inequities it reflects. We celebrate and tell stories of care in many forms at this time of interwoven pandemics: community care, material care, artist support, disability justice, Earth care and solidarity with environmental defenders. We take the metaphor and practice of making and mending, alongside an ethos of care, inclusion and anti-racism as our conceptual anchors.

** The Making Care programme is emergent – please watch this space for updates & events **

Events fall into the following intersecting categories:

Material Care:

Making, mending and paying close attention are much more than metaphors for ways to foster right relations between self and other, present and past.

Textile artist and inclusive arts practitioner Sally Bourner hosts online workshops in material care and restoration, and meets inspiring artists whose practices offer transformational possibilities for life beyond the limits of capitalism’s imagination. You can also join Sally at ONCA Barge at The Dresscue Project weekly from mid-May – bring clothes and soft items to repair in a warm and welcoming community space.

Sussex eco-poets and champions of tiny things Kin’d and Kin’d host celebrated international writers whose work spans anti-colonial thought and eco-poetics.

DIY Communities & Support Systems, Disability Justice & Open Access:

We’ll celebrate projects that de-centre ableist assumptions and honour queer, BIPOC and disabled-led communities creating support systems and chosen family to compensate for systemic violence and institutional failings. Meet artists with visions for a more just and equitable world, and explore what happens when difference is celebrated and underpins creative collaboration.

Somewhere between a slumber party, a punk show, a conversation and a mixtape, our Bedroom Hootenannies are not your average Zoom show. Join community artist and musician Nadia Buyse as she invites some of her favourite musicians and radical thinkers for songs, laughs, politics and comradery. The Hootenannies are experimental spaces for learning and empowerment through writing music and music communities.

Nadia will also be hosting monthly matinees at ONCA Barge from July, with Brighton young people curating bands, and musicians offering hybrid workshops and performances.

Earth Care and Solidarity with Environmental Defenders:

Join us for conversations with Indigenous artists making work amid pandemic and resource conflicts in Brazil. Building on these perspectives in the lead-up to COP26 and Lost Species Day 2021, we will explore the places where the work of environmental and racial justice meets emotions such as climate anxiety and ecological grief. Is the tension between the two generative? Meet the thinkers, teachers and artists bridging the gaps between feelings and critical action.

ONCA founder Laura Coleman will launch The Puma Years, her memoir devoted to Bolivian wildlife sanctuary Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi and the work of its founder Nena Baltazar Lugones.