our commitment to care-laboration

Care is integral to the survival, security, and wellness of 2SLGBTQIA+, racialized, disabled, and equity deserving peoples across the world. Community based mutual aid strategies are essential to resisting and decolonizing hetero-patriarchal, racist, ableist, and colonial systematic policies in our universities. More importantly, as written by Cara Page and Erica Woodland, “Our communities have shown up to care for each other in the midst of a global pandemic and extreme economic, political, and social instability.” (2023: 3). Practicing mutual aid and care is particularly urgent in our classrooms and universities, as these are places where students, researchers, and collaborators experience some of our most pressing social, political, and cultural events and learning. Our universities, particularly in North America, are institutions built on colonialism, that continue to uphold white, western, and heteronormative logics of knowledge production and knowing. ​

Prioritizing care-full pedagogies and care-laboration especially related to media production and technology is vital to students’ and researchers’ wellbeing, success, and scholastic and knowledge production. Frameworks of care are particularly important for students, researchers, and collaborators who are gender non-confirming, racialized, disabled and underrepresented in STEAM workplaces, labs, and institutions. 

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​surveillART prioritizes creating spaces of compassion, healing, and care when using the space and its equipment. All researchers, artists, students, and community members using the space deserve respect, access to a quiet and productive workspace, and be free of harassment and discrimination.