This experience of “making heavy the experience” of caring for a person, as Anne mentions below, nurses can have it, death doulas can have it, artists can have it, community activists can have it. I want the experience of motherhood to connect me to other parents, yes, but also to other humans who know deeply the value and pleasure of caregiving beyond only the role of motherhood. When I read modern writing about motherhood, I’m often left wanting to read more about the connections between caregiving for children and caregiving in other contexts.

I identify as a mother, because of my particular birthing and child-rearing journey.

Towards the end of the fair, I was able to sit in the intimate audience space at AAI listening to the below conversation between Angela Garbes and Anne Ishii, the excerpts included here are things I am still sitting with. In the community fair on Saturday, children crafted at a table, people danced with local hip hop dance instructors, there were books for sale, older women weaving things in one corner, it was warmth personified. We will explore how the principles of inclusion and equity we are so good at instilling in young people can be translated into exploitative institutional systems which prioritize productivity over care. Premised on the radical notion that everyday life is a social movement, we look at the invisibilized labor of ‘natural’ caregivers, the joyful innovations of communities of care. The write-up on the AAI website said this about the exhibit: On December 4th I visited the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia and interacted with their CARE exhibit. Two Conversations with writer Angela Garbes and writer / Director of Asian Arts Initiative, Anne Ishii

Angela garbes book