Displayed in the first circuit of the Blackwood’s Take Care exhibition series, Laura Yuile’s crumbling soap mannequin, Mother Figure #4 (2017), foregrounds the labour of art conservation. As Habits of Care curator Helena Reckitt describes, “scented with fragrant oils and infused with various fibres, pollen, and dust, the piece [was] ‘maintained’ throughout the exhibition by gallery staff. Despite their efforts of moisturizing and lubrication, the work [degraded] over the course of the exhibition.” The gradual degradation of the work points to art’s immediate implication in the labour of care through production, curation, maintenance, custodianship, and so forth. Resting on a sculpture designed to evoke an oversized soap dish containing water, leaves, refuse, hand-sculptured forms, and scattered coins, Yuile’s sculpture also recalls the fountains into which tourists throw pennies. As Reckitt argues, this gesture “contrasts the worship of the female form with women’s labour to maintain their youthfully attractive bodies.”

As the mannequin “ages” and decays, we are prompted to rethink where care is typically invested, or not, and how we might develop new habits of care that encompass both the human and the nonhuman. In a contemporary context in which many private, public, and social spaces are devoid of care, Yuile’s work draws our attention to the links and differential ethics between self and collective care, reasserting care as a practice of resilience.