Take Care of Your Self - The Art and Cultures of Care and Libera

Artist Sundus Abdul Hadi’s reflections on self-care as a community act depict care as crucial to creating a just society. “Take care of yourself. How many times a week do we hear or say these words? If we all took the time to care for ourselves, how much stronger would we be? More importantly, how much stronger would our communities be?” In Take Care of Your Self, Sundus Abdul Hadi turns a critical and inventive eye to the notion of care and how it relates to social justice. In contrast to the billion-dollar industry of self-care, Abdul Hadi identifies care as a necessary practice—rooted in self, community, and the world—in the collective process of decolonization, empowerment, and liberation. Abdul Hadi explores the role of art in building regenerative narratives to confront and undo systemic oppression and trauma. Weaving in the work of visionary transcultural artists who engage the liberatory intersections of struggle and care, Abdul Hadi centers the voices of those most-often relegated to the margins and emphasizes the importance of creating brave spaces for their stories and art. The transformative power of care exists in these spaces, building a foundation for a world in desperate need of healing and change. Praise: “Take Care of Your Self turns upside down and inside out the meanings of self-care, illuminating for us decolonial futures through our collective healing. Sundus Abdul Hadi invites us into the most intimate valleys of her own healing journey—taking us gently by the hand to show us the visionary work of artists while rooting us in the fertile soils nurtured by Black, Indigenous, anticolonial, and feminist thinkers—and pointing to the revolutionary potential of transnationalism. Take Care of Your Self left me elated, floating a bit with the buoyancy that hope offers.”—Noura Erakat, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine