ROUTINES OF COMPASSION
COLLABORATIVE PROJECT
INTERACTIVE WEBSITE
2022
In collaboration with my fellow students, I constructed a website as a platform for us to support one another by sharing routines of care during the university strikes. The website included different forms of media including film, audio and photography.
Routines of compassion grew out of a need, during the University strikes, to feel cared for and connected to other students. I wanted to find a way that we may begin to share and help one another, drawing connections and building a community in the University network without a focus being on the University institution or studying.This lead me to put out an open call on various student forums and Whatsapp groups asking students if they would like to share any practices of compassion or acts of self care that they personally partake in.
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Talking to fellow students about how impact of the university strikes something that regularly came up was the loss of a sense of structure. Care was important but there was also something nice about having care rituals in the week that centred us again and made us aware of time passing, allowing us to reflect on how we were feeling.
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This is where the idea for 'Routines of Care' was born. We imagined a student timetable like the ones we receive at university only this would be a care timetable in which you may place care activities and acts of compassion for yourself.We thought that even if you didn't follow it strictly (it becoming a pressure was exactly what we didn't want to happen) the act of creating a timetable it is a good reminder that the week is not just made for productive tasks and studying but that there should be time for care, compassion and relaxation.
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I collected routines of care from a number of different students and conducted interviews with them about why these practices were important in their lives. With their direction and input I recorded these practices with visually and with audio and collated on to a website to be shared with other students.
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Our end goal was to create a forum where we could share our personal care timetables with one another not only to feel more connected but also to validate our rest. We hoped that knowing that someone else was also taking time to take care of themselves would make it easier for students to feel like they could too without any guilt or anxiety.