An On-going ‘Potluck’ of Care
Festival visitors decompressing in the Rest & Digest Corner created by the artists Irfan Kasban and Zarina Muhammad (Photo: Joseph Nair)
DATEDec 9, 2024
WRITTEN BYTeo Xiao Ting
Xiao Ting’s practice of tending to generous attention materialises as arts writing, facilitation, and one-to-one therapy sessions. She works in intimate and sometimes invisible spaces to co-create worlds that are more habitable and joyous. They were part of CITRUS fest: Who Cares? as the workshop designer and facilitator of the "Conflict & Communication 101" workshop.
DOCUMENTED BYLaura Jane Lee
Laura Jane is a Hong Kong-born poet, translator and voiceover artist, currently based between Singapore and Scotland. She serves as Marketing Editor on the poetry.sg team, and her most recent pamphlet "flinch & air" was published with Out-Spoken Press in 2021.ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This article is published by CITRUS practices in collaboration with Ethos Books. All four articles and CITRUS fest: Who Cares? have been produced in partnership with the Arts Resource Hub and supported by the National Arts Council.What does it mean to “care” when this word has such different meanings for different people and contexts?
Working in the arts can sometimes feel isolating, even within collaborative projects. As a CITRUS associate who also engages in the arts as a friend, writer, and facilitator, ‘care’ is a recurring theme for me. My friends and close collaborators show they care, but what about the arts ecosystem as a whole? What does it mean to ‘care’ when this word has such different meanings for different people and contexts?
From 28 to 30 June 2024, CITRUS: Who Cares? unfurled as a pilot festival held at 42 Waterloo Street (42WS), weaving together communal dinners, workshops, and conversations, as an invitation to collectively answer some of these questions about the amorphous concept of care.
This ‘potluck’ of an event was organised by CITRUS practices, which stands for Care, Intimacy, TRaUma-informed and Safer practices in the arts, and is a gathering of arts workers who first came together in 2020. This iteration of the festival was co-directed by Chong Gua Khee and Hoo Kuan Cien, with Elizabeth Chan as communications coordinator and Samzy Jo as production manager.
Responding to the question of “who cares?”, the festival was not a solo endeavour that materialised overnight but a seed that took more than half a year to germinate. Its genesis can be traced to a conversation between the festival’s co-directors, Gua Khee and Kuan Cien, and the Arts Resource Hub (ARH) in July 2023.
From that conversation, the seed sprouted in December 2023 during a bi-annually held CITRUS practices gathering titled “Making Concentrate”, where we came together to reflect on the past year, and how we wish to work with “care” individually and collectively in the next. Seated in the black box theatre of 42WS alongside over twenty arts workers from across the ecosystem, I recall Gua Khee sharing a proposal for the festival, and how she would like it to be a space where people can co-learn and share the tools that were picked up in all our myriad practices.
In that gathering, Gua Khee led a brainstorming session where participants shared their desires for the festival on post-it notes, which ranged from having free food and learning a new skill or tool, to inclusivity and having different entry points to engaging with the festival. The conversation branched out further in the April 2024 gathering, which was themed around “Hustling with Care”, where participants gave their thoughts about the festival line up that was cooked up based on people’s contributions from the previous gathering.
Participants with post-it notes of ideas for the festival at “Making Concentrate”, a CITRUS gathering that happened in December 2023 (Photo: CITRUS practices)
All these desires and hopes expressed over half a year coalesced in the inaugural CITRUS fest in June 2024, which held space for more than 500 attendees over the course of three days.
Who (Else) Cares?
The current landscape of care in the Singapore art industry extends beyond CITRUS practices, which had emerged in 2021 following a National Arts Council-commissioned 15-hour workshop series in 2020 titled “Making Performances with Care: Approaches to Care and Intimacy in Performance-Making”. Facilitated by Tactility Studies (Chong Gua Khee & Bernice Lee), the workshop series brought together arts practitioners who were individually asking questions of care and what to consider in the process of making art, widening beyond the context of staging intimacy safely. Globally, conversations about consent and safety had been cascading from the 2017 #MeToo movement, resulting in higher demand and awareness of practices such as intimacy coordination.
There was also a flurry of collectives and artworks created in this timeframe which addressed these topics, such as “There can be no touching here” by ila, commissioned by the Singapore Art Museum in 2020, and The Consent Collaborative (Chew Lihong & Prescott Gaylord) in 2021. These further set the stage for the art sector and community to have a better handle of what ‘care’ entails, and what it might take for a culture of care to be nurtured and grown.
During CITRUS fest: Who Cares?, space was held not just for arts practitioners who were already acquainted with the context, but also for surprising visitors who were new to Singapore and/or its artistic ecosystems. A tourist from Germany was in Singapore for an academic conference on AI (artificial intelligence) when he walked past 42WS by chance on the first day of the festival, and ended up coming for all three days, even contributing to the array of snacks laid outside for festival goers as refreshments. Despite not having a direct association with care practices or the arts, he had expansive conversations with practitioners who were also exploring technology in these ways but through the humanities.
There were also Singaporeans from outside of the arts who resonated with the programmes after encountering it through Wellness Festival Singapore, such as a social worker who was returning to work after taking a break due to burnout.
So What Exactly Happened?
Structured into three broad categories of Bring Your Socks (workshops), Bring Your Plate (food gatherings), and Bring Your Questions (facilitated conversations), the festival was nourished by the Rest & Digest Corner, created and maintained by Port of Reciprocity (Irfan Kasban) and Rumah Rimau Dapor (Zarina Muhammad) throughout the day. Additionally, the festival was bracketed by communal dining experiences prepared by Practice Tuckshop and chef Priscill Koh, spotlighting sustainably-grown local produce and a selection of pickled rescued vegetables and condiments.
Arts practitioners gathering and eating around a table filled with food prepared by Practice Tuckshop and Chef Priscill Koh during the opening dinner (Photo: Joseph Nair)
The list of programmes entered specific topics such as care in image production and circulation, and more open spaces such as ‘Curiosity Circles’ where visitors were invited to bring up topics that they want to spend time unpacking. As I wandered through 42WS, each aspect of the festival felt intentionally crafted to ensure clarity in objectives, so that everyone involved in the festival were able to make informed decisions about how they want to participate in the programmes. Entering the space felt like visiting a friend’s home, where you are fed and taken care of, and the only expectation is for you to bring your curiosities and openness.
Given the potential intensities of these sessions, everyone (myself included) who needed space to decompress spent time in the Rest & Digest Corner housed in the rehearsal studio of 42WS, sitting or lying down at the picnic mats spread across the floor. Responding to the desire for different entry points and levels of engagements in the festival, visitors also participated in a robust and asynchronous conversation with each other via prompts written on the mirrors of the rehearsal studio.
Some of the CITRUS fest team seated in front of the mirror at the Rest & Digest Corner (Photo: Joseph Nair)
‘Care’ as a concept can be rather hard to pin down as specific skills and concerns, and the festival was a portal through which participants were able to attend workshops to expand their toolkit in order to be better equipped to navigate care practices.
Jointly led by Rayann Condy, an intimacy coordinator, and The Consent Collective, the workshop “Introduction to Intimacy in Performance” gathered 17 people in a room to explore exercises to better practise consent and communicating boundaries. It went beyond addressing the performance setting, but also gave participants tools to navigate these issues interpersonally. Rather than simply delivering information via a lecture, the workshop got participants on their feet as they parsed through the process of feeling boundaries and communicating them to each other.
On the flipside of ‘care’, which is not always fuzzy and warm, is how we navigate difficult moments such that repair and reconciliation is possible. “Conflict & Communication 101”, a workshop exploring conflict navigation that I facilitated, was a space where 10 participants came together to reflect on their tendencies during such situations. Sharing resources lovingly crafted by people who are devoted to conflict transformation such as “Turning Towards Each Other” by Jovida Ross & Weyam Ghadbian, the workshop illuminated alternative perspectives on conflict and ways to move forward after rupture.
“Rehearsing for ‘Better’” led by Chong Gua Khee and Adib Kosnan used forum theatre to challenge traditional workplace norms in the arts. Participants examined scenarios reflecting common industry pressures, identifying ways to set healthier boundaries and question assumptions about fair treatment. In reflecting on her experience in the workshop, Christine from Tusitala noted how the session helped “create a safe space to explore negotiating and asserting boundaries”, which could redefine what’s considered ‘normal’ in arts work culture.
Through these workshops where participants were invited to “Bring [Their] Socks”, participants who inhabit a myriad of contexts ranging from arts management, sound art, film, and art therapy as a producer, artist, programmer and advocate showed up not just as their professional selves, but also as individuals who care about those they are in relationship with.
What’s Next?
CITRUS practices are working towards creating more resources where people can come together to learn, and if needed, become communities of practice where people can bounce ideas off and become pillars of support for one another and themselves. The gatherings through which the festival was conceptualised are held bi-annually, and are open to anyone who is interested to listen and share. The next gathering will be held on 27 and 28 December 2024, and it will be facilitated by artist ila in the form of a communal cooking and meal titled Makin’ Makan, an iteration of ila’s ikan pais.
Makin’ Makan (2019) (Photo: ila)
In the pipeline are reading digests of workshops held during the festival such as a guide on image-making and circulation, tips on how to navigate the arts ecosystem as a caregiver and/or parent, and what care might look like to backstage professionals.
Dreaming up a world where people are better equipped to care more sincerely and effectively for each other is a collective and cross-sectoral effort, one that cannot be enacted in silos. Even amid rigid structures and difficult habits, I wonder what can be a small first step that feels possible and good to take, to inch towards such a world.
When presented with other resources created by CITRUS practices like Library of Care, an online microsite where topics like Communication, Values, and Addressing Harm are organised into reflection questions and exercises, I wonder what might compel each of us to start thinking about this sprawling and immensely precious thing that is care.
