ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter sets out the overarching arguments which are developed in the chapters which follow. It presents the intent of this book: to articulate an ethical-methodological framework whereby critical artistic practice might contribute to the materialisation of more equal, more collectively fulfilling, possibilities of being. Radical care, in conjunction with disruptive arttexts, is introduced as such a framework.
Certain key overarching themes which run throughout the book are explored. Firstly, ‘being’ is reflected upon, and the political importance of upholding and acknowledging materiality, bodily-ness and disparate positionalities. The relation of textuality to materiality is also considered, observing the act of writing to be something which cannot be held apart from being.
Text will be a key theme running through the subsequent chapters, and as a written book, there is thus an overlaying of method, process and subject of enquiry. This is acknowledged and embraced: the form and process of writing is something in need of reflexive consideration, not a neutral relaying of ideas.
Reflecting this, the chapters which follow do not neatly proceed from one to the next. Thus, to aid the reader in navigating the book to come, a relatively extensive outline of the subsequent chapters is given.
