Public Programming: The Resurrection of Care
Our Resurrection of Care ritual creates a space for our community to renew our vows to one another and to the earth, reaffirming our shared resistance to the greed, extraction, and exploitation that endanger our world. It is a ceremony of collective commitment—a reminder that care is not a finite resource but a living practice that must be tended, protected, and continually re-invoked.
The Resurrection of Care, Echo Park Lake, Los Angeles, CA, 2018, video footage by Eliza Swann.
The Resurrection of Care was first conceived by Eliza Swann in 2014 as a direct response to the infamous "Cremation of Care" ceremony at Bohemian Grove. Where the “Cremation of Care” symbolically destroys care in the name of political dominance and elite detachment, the Resurrection of Care turns that gesture inside out. Instead of burning care away, our ritual revives it, embodies it, and pledges to uphold it. It is a public vow of continued care for all living and dead, an affirmation that empathy, nurturance, and tenderness remain central to how we exist with one another in this world.
Over the years, the performance has taken place in a constellation of venues across Los Angeles, each one adding its own texture and meaning to the ritual: Coaxial Gallery, The Gaylord Apartments, MaRS Gallery, Echo Park Lake, and Muscle Beach have all hosted iterations of the Resurrection of Care. Whether performed in a gallery, by a lake, or on the edge of the ocean’s surf, the ritual draws its power from its ability to meet the public where they are—inviting passersby, neighbors, and community members into a shared act of remembrance and recommitment.
The 2018 Resurrection of Care took place at Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles and featured Annie Connole, Lisa Dring, Yoli Alma-Flor, Edgar Fabian Frias, Kwonyin, Thaddeus Pedisich, Saewon Oh, and Yuneun Rhi as ceremonial leaders. Through sound, movement, invocation, and communal gesture, they guided participants through a process of re-enlivening the very capacity that the dominant culture seeks to suppress: the capacity to care deeply, fiercely, and without apology.
