Caregiving Sound Archive

Conducted over the course of four months by the Cuidadorxs Invisibles team, the project consisted in running workshops and art activities with a group non-professional caregivers of people with degenerative diseases, mainly concentrated in Madrid's Centro, Latina and Arganzuela neighbourhoods.

The workshops were conducted virtually and asynchronously through a WhatsApp group led by architect Paz Martín, visual artist and choreographer María Jerez and singer Su Garrido Pombo. Using the material generated by participants during the workshops —texts, photographs, images taken from the internet, videos and voice memos— artist Javier Aquilué produced a series of sound portraits centred around the caregivers' voices. The podcasts not only highlight the value of this collective whose unpaid caregiving makes them practically invisible, but also lay the foundations for the construction of an audio record of caregiving and disease.

Marta Fernández Calvo is the author and project leader. A visual artist and researcher, she has a particular interest in the relationship between the visual arts and caregiving. Based on her own family’s experience, the Cuidadorxs Invisibles project shines a spotlight on a collective at risk of exclusion: the unpaid caregivers of people with degenerative diseases. Marta’s work has been exhibited in exhibitions such as No Soul for Sale in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern (London), Utopia Station at the 53rd Venice Biennale, and Querer parecer noche at Centro de Arte de Dos de Mayo (Madrid). She is currently involved in collaborations with the Fundación ONCE contemporary art biennial (Madrid), Hayy Jameel (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia), Museos de Jalisco (Mexico) and Performa Gal. She lives in Madrid.

Daniela Ruiz Moreno is the project coordinator and curator. With a degree in Art Theory and History from the University of Buenos Aires, since 2013 she has been coordinating the International Artists in Residence Programme of Fundación ACE, where she has undertaken a wide range of art projects and managed international partnerships to facilitate artistic exchanges. As a result of this experience, in 2019 she joined the Tate Exchange team at Tate Modern and Tate Liverpool through the Brooks International Fellowship Programme.

In collaboration with: Fundación ONCE.