Artistic Strategies of Ecological Care Work: Marwa Arsanios, Cecylia Malik, and Diana Lelonek

Abstract In ecofeminist contemporary art, the role of women in patriarchal societies and the paradigm of wounded nature in need of care are closely connected. Referring to Maria Puig de la Bellacasa’s concepts of ecological care and soil time, I explore three artistic strategies by Marwa Arsanios, Cecylia Malik, and Diana Lelonek, dealing with seed conservation, protests against deforestation, and the collective harvesting of post-industrial landscapes. On the basis of these forms of women’s ecological care between mother, land cultivator, caregiver, and “maintenance provider,” it is worth asking which layers of the work are visible. How is the critique of the gendered division of labor expressed and does it go beyond the established narratives of the connection between woman, earth, and fertility