Kroppe i forandring: forestillinger om omsorg i værker af Lea Guldditte Hestelund

Artist Lea Guldditte Hestelund engages with the body as a material, a shape, and an ideological battlefield, and in recent years the caregiving body has entered her work. In this article, I examine how Guldditte Hestelund grapples with the mothering and caregiving body by examining the self-portraits Hissy Fit I (2022) and Hissy Fit II (2022), the photographs V. (2023) and E.I. (2023), and selected works from the exhibition Hissy Fit (2022). Building on feminist positions and in particular scholar Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, I argue that the works point towards an expanded notion of care by foregrounding other narratives and material kinship between human bodies and bodies of stone. Based on this, I argue that the works engage with care as a matter that is both personal and planetary, allowing an understanding of care that involves personal and ecological issues as well as timelines.