Capacities of Care | Curated by Aaron Knochel  

Art Alley | HUB-Robeson Center   

February 14, 2025 – June 1, 2025   

Reception Date: February 14, 2025 | 4 - 6pm   

University Park, PA – HUB-Robeson Galleries is excited to present Capacities of Care, a group exhibition curated by Aaron Knochel, Associate Professor of Art Education in Penn State’s School of Visual Arts, showcasing artworks thematically engaged with care ethics as a multidimensional space of relation that needs tending and sustenance. Capacities of Care is on view in Art Alley from February 14th, 2025 – June 1st, 2025. All are welcome to join us for a celebratory reception on February 14th from 4 - 6pm in Art Alley, HUB-Robeson Center.   

There is a blossoming understanding of the impact of the arts on the health and wellbeing of our communities and institutions. Whether it be in the medical humanities or advances in neuroscience and the impact of the arts (or neuroarts), there is a growing need to understand how creativity, aesthetic experience, and critical practice may impact our capacities of care.

The capacities of care is a concept framework to understand and explore how care relationships manifest in our lives in distinct and interconnected ways. The capacity of care framework includes five interlinking domains:

•           self-care: acts in consideration of one’s own wellbeing

•           caregiving: acts invested in the wellbeing of another

•           care receiving: awareness of another’s contribution to one’s own wellbeing

•           community care: collective acts whereby individual and group considerations for wellbeing are exchanged

•           artificial care: awareness of nonhuman, sometimes technological, contributions to wellbeing

Works in the exhibit, which include painting, photography, sculpture, textile, and new media, weave these capacities together in nuanced ways from the deeply personal to the collective, asking questions of what it means to care for ourselves and for others in times of uncertainty.

Aaron D. Knochel is a mixed methods researcher, curriculum theorist, and artist with interests in transdisciplinary learning, critical social theory, and media arts. He has worked in various visual arts learning spaces, including schools, museums, and community arts programs, both domestically and internationally. Most recently, he was a 2022-23 Fulbright Scholar in the Digital Culture program at the University of Bergen, Norway. Capacities of Care is a part of a larger effort in research creation in arts in health focused on care ethics, creative practice, and narrative inquiry. Knochel’s research project led by an interdisciplinary team of Penn State faculty titled “Expanding Capacities of Care: Methodological and Pedagogical Opportunities in Narrative Ethics and Creative Inquiry for Nursing Education and Professional Development.” The project has many different activity streams from developing art exhibitions to workshops engaging creative practice and resilience for healthcare and educational professionals. The research is jointly funded by Penn State’s College of Arts & Architecture and Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.

Featured Artists: Eric Berdis, Rachel Epp Buller, Anne Cutri, Rachel Fitzpatrick, Brandi Lewis, Zsuzsi Nagy, Jessica Roseman, Steve Rubin, Sue Uhlig, Helen Valasquez, & Emily Van Wallegen. 

For more information on this and other exhibitions, contact HUB-Robeson Galleries at (814) 865-2563, or visit their website at studentaffairs.psu.edu/hub/art-galleries. Class, student organization and office visits are welcome! Email Galleries@psu.edu with inquiries. Keep up to date with HUB-Robeson Galleries by signing up for their Listserv or follow them on Instagram @hubrobesongalleries.    

Contact: Robert Sparrow Jones, Curator and Senior Gallery Manager, HUB-Robeson Galleries (814) 865-2563, rkj5315@psu.edu