Pirate Care is researching, documenting and facilitating learning from the increasingly present forms of activism at the intersection of “care” and “piracy”, which in new and interesting ways are trying to intervene in one of the most important challenges of our time, that is, the “crisis of care”. We live in a time in which care, as a political and collective capacity of societies to attend to the most fundamental needs of humans and their environment, is becoming more difficult or criminalised. Crucially, against this denial of care, the practices of pirate care share a willingness to openly disobey laws and legal regimes, whenever these stand in the way of solidarity, and politicise that disobedience to contest the status quo. That disobedience and that politicisation are what defines these practices as pirate care.

The exhibition presents a survey of both contemporary and historical pirate care practices and it is accompanied by a public programme focusing on Healthcare As Disobedience. The exhibition builds on the online Pirate Care Syllabus, collectively written between 2019 and 2020 with 14 activists, researchers and artists. The Syllabus is an expanding work-in-progress created with activists and artists engaged in pirate care with the aim of activating collective learning from their practices.

Pirate Care was previously exhibited in the context of Rijeka European Capital of Culture 2020, produced by Drugo More. While in Rijeka we presented the Pirate Care initiative documented in the Syllabus, in the Zagreb exhibition we are exhibiting the breadth of pirate care practices.

Pirate Care is a transnational research project and a network of activists, scholars and practitioners who stand against the criminalization of solidarity & for a common care infrastructure. It was initiated in 2018 by Valeria Graziano, Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak.