“CO/WORK/PLAY” was an exploration into the assertion that culture work is a form of care and care is a form of culture work. This collective project unfolded over the course of one month in 2018 through a series of co/work/play meet ups among children, babies, and their caretakers within the HEY BABY community founded by Gilda Davidian with the Feminist Center for Creative Work. On two days a week families were invited to use the second floor of Human Resources as an open art studio space that centered simultaneous work and play, divergent artistic and labor practices, and the critical importance of care as a cultural contribution. The results of our work together were shared within the larger exhibition at Human Resources titled, “We: TBD”, the form and focus of our installation determined by our shared process.

Our co/work/play space was outfitted with art supplies, reading material, free wifi, coffee, tea and (potluck) snacks. Parents that are chest/breastfeeding had a comfortable place to nurse or pump. Babies had a place to nap. Gender neutral bathrooms are available for all. There was a comfortable place to prepare and eat food. Our work space included soft surfaces, costume and hand-building play, and a co-working desk for adults that also serves as a system of tunnels, secret passageways, and dwellings for child-artists to make their work. Through this process our goal was to build a critical vocabulary and radical affirmation that the ways in which we care for one another must be considered a powerful form of culture work and that the cultural material we create can contribute directly to the wellness of relationship within families, networks of communities, and across conflicting or complex identities. We assert that those people that act as primary stewards of relationship: mothers, parents, grandparents, caretakers are in a significant position to build political, social, cultural power. And the combination of this role with the role of “culture worker” is of critical importance and requires support.