The Keyword is Care

Because care is inherently ambiguous, it can be difficult to understand, communicate, or facilitate. This practice-based design research critically examines the notion of care, addressing its ambiguity and the challenges it may pose within body-object relationships. Throughout the book, I explore how care can be made concrete as an act of connection between body and object, thereby highlighting the potential of caring practices in design. By designing experimental objects that evoke care through function and materiality, I examine familiar acts of care, such as hugging, petting, holding, and combing, and question whether it is possible to care, comb, and connect with an object.

Through design, a new consumption system is proposed that should satisfy a fundamental human desire to consume, suggesting that use becomes a way of consuming and that caring becomes a way of using. The object embodies the perception of care but the reality of use. By exploring basic acts of engagement rooted in care, a meaningful consumption pattern can emerge, evolving and flourishing over time as a relationship between body and object. 

It’s an existential design crisis meets Tamagotchi, with a soft yet slightly unsettling landing at home.