The Creation of a Carer,
Digital Photograph, 2016

The Creation of a Carer is an appropriation of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Man, painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In the original, the space between the hands of God and Adam captures the moment before they touch—or perhaps a moment where they never touch. The making of Man symbolises social structures and reinforces the power dynamic between God and man, both depicted as masculine, dominant, and powerful. God can create man, but man cannot create God.

In The Creation of a Carer, the hands are positioned in a gesture of offering. They are the hands of my maternal grandmother and my mother. My grandmother created my mum, cared for her, and, in turn, handed down the cycle of care to my mother, who then passed it on to me. The cyclical nature of care is rooted in the matriarchal, cross-cultural migrant experience—one that is handed down through generations. The care provided is gestural; it exists in the act of giving. My grandmother’s journey, my mother’s, and mine intertwine to create this moment: the creation of a carer.