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Radical Acts of Care

Exhibition at Ganapati Restaurant, Peckham, London

Context & History

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Radical Acts of Care was a hybrid exhibition, curated by Charlie Fitz. The central artworks were collaborations between Fitz and her partner in art and life, Oscar Vinter. The physical exhibition was originally hosted at Ganapati Restaurant in Peckham, london in 2019. Charlie worked as a waitress at Ganapati restaurant in Peckham from 2013 to 2015. That was a unique and special time both in Charlies history and in the history of the restaurant and Charlie considers many of the people she worked with and for during that time as chosen family. 

A photo of many of the Ganapati Women taken at the end

of a Ganapati Restaurant training evening in 2013

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A photo of Oscar, Charlie, Claire (Ganapati Restaurant Proprietor) and  Stanley the dog outside Ganapti Restaurant in 2021

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Oscar and Charlie met and began their relationship in 2014 and it was not long until Oscar was also a part of the Ganapati family and working as a delivery cyclist for the takeaway.  

A photo of Oscar working as the takeaway delivery cyclist 2014

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A photo of Charlie about to cycle home, having locked up after a shift at the restaurant in 2014

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Since Charlie became sick and we had to spend a lot of our time researching her rare conditions and fundraising for her expensive healthcare, we have had to move around a lot, depending on the generosity of family and friends for a home. Through all of that the people at Ganapati restaurant have been a consistent presence and source of  support, kindness and care.

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Charlie's parents moved from her childhood home to a place she has no connection to, but through the last decade of precarity, Ganapati Restaurant has remained. It is a place we both feel calm and at home in. A place we feel welcome and loved. 

There is a table at the back of the restaurant by the bar, with a window behind it, table 8. When Charlie worked at Ganapati this is where the staff would commune at the end of shift, taking part in a nightly ritual, in which they would eat, drink and share stories. 

Whenever we visit our Ganapati family, we take part in this ritual at table 8 and there is no other place and group of people who can make us feel a sense of home and nostalgia.

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About the Hybrid exhibition

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Radical Acts of Care was inspired by Johana Hedva's, Sick Woman Theory  which states that: ‘The most anticapitalist protest is to care for another and to care for yourself.' The physical and virtual multi-media exhibition explores shared vulnerability, the nature of caring and surviving and the position of the sick in society. The exhibition is a collaboration between Charlie Fitz and Oscar Vinter, partners in art and life. The virtual exhibition will went live on Sunday 7th April 2019, which you can explore here.

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care
community
solidarity

The exhibition was also held at Ganapati Restaurant and features 10 prints and numerous postcards by the couple, as well as postcards created by their friends and wider community through an open call in the Peckham Peculiar newspaper.

The exhibition was created to raise awareness and funds for Chance4Charlie. A fundraising campaign for life-saving Neurosurgery for Charlie. For more info go to www.chance4charlie.com

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Poster reading: "radical acts of care, an exhibition at Ganapati Restaurant ''. Ganapati Restaurant is hosting an exhibition called Radical Acts of Care, showcasing the collaborative work of partners in art and life Charlie Fitz and Oscar Vinter. The exhibition aims to raise awareness of Chance4Charlie, a fundraising campaign for life-saving neurosurgery for Charlie, as well as issues surrounding vulnerability and the nature of caring. We would like to invite readers to create visual artwork or present writing on the theme of Radical Acts of Care, to be shown alongside Charlie and Oscar's work and be part of the exhibition. Submissions need to be A6 (postcard size) - please post your artwork, drop it in, or email digital files to the restaurant. info@ganapatirestaurant.comWork shown will be for sale at the private view /fundraiser at Ganapati Restaurant. Monday 1st April 6.30pm. Part of the exhibition will be virtual and can be viewed at sickofbeingpatient.com/virtual-exhibition.

Leaflet design by Pam Williams

A red hot water bottle.

Notes on the theme

'The most anti-capitalist protest is to care for another and to care for yourself. To take on the historically feminized and therefore invisible practice of nursing, nurturing, caring. To take seriously each other’s vulnerability and fragility and precarity, and to support it, honor it, empower it. To protect each other, to enact and practice a community of support. A radical kinship, an interdependent sociality, a politics of care.' - Johana Hedva's, Sick Woman Theory 

Charlie and Oscar have been together since November 2014. Since August 2018 Charlie’s health became critical since that time Oscar has been Charlie’s full-time carer. They make art together and individually, reflecting on their experiences. Radical Acts of Care is about the small acts we do for each other, the small acts we do for ourselves. It is about the role of care, the labour of care and its position in our communities and cultures. It is about the position of those who care or are cared for within society. It is about our relationship to our world and surroundings. To care for a stranger and how we show care through the way we interact in public or the choices we make as consumers or as businesses. Although for Oscar & Charlie, the work starts as a reflection on their relationship, it has the potential to be a global theme. Radical Acts of Care are both small actions in interior spaces and big concepts, such as community, or how we care for our planet.

Notes on the curation

Curated by Charlie Fitz the exhibition begins at the back of the restaurant at table 8, a site  winding its way to the front and then around the middle, ending at Andrew Woods’ permanent sculpture ‘Ganapati Clayman’, who watches over the restaurant witnessing each new exhibition as they come and go. The larger prints are numbered 1 to 10. Although the pieces do not need to be read in this order, the way in which we naturally planned the exhibition highlights an important part of our relationship to the space. When we met, Charlie was working at Ganapati and her colleagues have become our second family. At the end of most shifts the staff would congregate at the tables in the back of the restaurant to eat their dinner and talk often late into the night. Oscar, who would collect Charlie from work or meet her there after he had finished working at the takeaway would usually join. Throughout Charlie’s illness, moving from flat to flat or in with family in Devon and then in Birmingham, this corner in the back of the restaurant has been a constant and will always feel like home, so the exhibition begins there as a site of constant care.

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Exhibition Map

Back of restaurant (below):


1 - Prophecies
2 - Hold my hand,
3 - Mother Laughs for days
4 - Heliotropic
5 - I do nothing

Front of restaurant (right):

6 - The Social Model

7 - The Thinking Heart

8 - Radical Acts study in pink

9 - Promise to be tender

10 - Radical Arts collage

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Radical Acts of Care x Ganapati Exhibition, London, 2019

filmed & edited by Oscar Vinter

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For enquiries contact: charliefitzartist@gmail.com

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© 2024 by Charlie Fitz

Disclaimer: this website is under going an accessibility audit in crip time, as the artist who runs it has an energy limiting illnesses. 

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