Presentation of A Soft Spot in the event Critical Poetics: Writing with Care

Abstract

Critical Poetics: Writing with Care Wednesday 7 December, 1-2pm Delphine Grass (Lancaster) Helena Hunter (NTU) Maria Gil Ulldemolins (Hasselt) Francis Whorall-Campbell (CCA Derry~Londonderry)

‘What is care?’ asks María Puig de la Bellacasa (2017): ‘Is it an affection? A moral obligation? Work? A burden? A joy? Something we can learn or practice? Something we just do?’ Recent social, political and environmental crises have brought new attention to these questions, and to the ways that we perceive and experience forms of care. To what degree is writing with care an ethical as well as an aesthetic imperative? What might this work achieve in the face of global trauma, social inequality and environmental devastation? And how might the particular pressures of the contemporary moment destabilise received forms and genres and invite alternative ways of thinking and writing? Marking the publication of a special issue of The Contemporary Journal entitled ‘Writing with Care’, this research seminar features short talks from four interdisciplinary researchers who explore the ways that writing, art, criticism, or a combination of these, might help us attend to manifold, interconnected and collective care responsibilities.

Delphine Grass will examine the politics of motherhood, attention and national indifference in the context of migration and climate change through the lens of Simone Weil, Hans/Jean Arp and children’s care games. Maria Gil Ulldemolins will share work inspired by Swiss artist Heidi Bucher, reflecting on the relationship between a medicine, waiting and care. Francis Whorall-Campbell will explore queer ecologies and more-than-human forms of care in poetry, and Helena Hunter will present a film exploring tree spirit beliefs in the Philippines and how these intersect with colonisation, deforestation and bird decline.

Delphine Grass is Senior Lecturer in French and Comparative Literature at Lancaster University. She is currently writing a book entitled Translation as Creative Critical Practice and, with Lily Robert-Foley, co-editing a volume entitled Unending Translation: Creative Critical Experiments in Translation and Life Writing. A poet and poetry translator, she has published works on contemporary French literature, the relationship between archive and nationalism in literature, and multilingual borderlands.

Helena Hunter works at the intersections of visual art, poetry and science to address the critical ecologies of environmental change. Her writing has been published in Reliquiae, Alterity, MAI and Something Other, and her works have been exhibited widely, including at venues such as Tate Modern, Barbican Art Gallery, Delfina Foundation, Whitechapel Gallery and The Wellcome Trust. She began doctoral research on ‘Algae Ecologies’ at Nottingham Trent University in September 2022, funded by the AHRC M4C doctoral training partnership.

Maria Gil Ulldemolins is an artistic researcher at Hasselt University, Belgium. Exploring autotheoretical and hybrid approaches to writing, her current research focuses on questions of interiority, textual architecture and soft materials, with publications in a range of journals including Art, Phenomenology and Practice and MAI. She is one of the co-founders of Passage, a peer-reviewed journal for experimental scholarly writing.

Francis Whorrall-Campbell is a British writer, researcher, artist and co-founder of Conversations Across Place, a research and publishing platform dedicated to decolonial and queer approaches to landscape. Their work has appeared in Art Monthly, Art-Agenda and The Architectural Review, as well as in anthologies published by Prototype, Pilot Press, and Ugly Duckling Presse. They are currently a Research Associate at the Centre for Contemporary Art Derry~Londonderry.

Hosted by the Critical Poetics Research Group, this seminar is open to all.