From climate emergencies to novel viruses, to carefully respond to the many multiple and overlapping crises occurring at this moment is a weighted undertaking that we as creative practitioners continue to grapple with.

In Notions of Care works by artists Arini Byng, Renae Coles and Anna Dunnill (Snapcat), Polly Stanton, Kate Tucker and Katie West ask us to consider not only how to care at this moment. They also invite us to pay attention to care and its contours, its messiness and its hierarchies, its priorities and marginalisations — and, as First Nations people have long recognised and attended to, the relationality of care and our interdependence with human and more-than-human worlds.

Now more than ever exhibitions like Notions of Care remind us then of the continued importance of care to sustain and restore that which we need to thrive and survive in uncertain and possible futures. Indeed, while Notions of Care was incubated in 2019 as a conversation between eight artists and curators, its promissory offer- ing to provide a space for audiences to take time to pause and reflect is arguably more relevant now because of the ‘crisis of care’1 the global health pandemic has made urgent and more visible.

As we at Bus Projects welcome a time of experi- mentation, testing and action, imagining new models of co-directorial organisational innovation and forms of dynamic, diverse and unexpected artistic programming, Notions of Care is also a reminder of the continual and collective labour needed to maintain our practices of care. Practices that require deep learning and ongoing reflection for the responsibilities that we have to the communities and social worlds in which we live, work and play. As an artist-run organisation entering its twen- ty-first year of operation and dedicated to supporting the critical, conceptual and interdisciplinary practices of artists, this reflexive practice of care is Bus Projects’ com- mitment to our community.

Congratulations to my colleagues and exhibition curators, Kathryne Genevieve Honey and Nina Mulhall, artists Arini, Renae, Anna, Polly, Kate and Katie, and on behalf of Bus Projects, our deepest gratitude to NETS Victoria and Creative Victoria whose support has made this tour possible.

Jacina Leong
Acting Co-Director, Bus Projects