A New Aesthetic of Care

Abstract

The reduction of landscape maintenance and the abrupt suspension of human activity during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 produced an ecological moment now referred to as the “anthropause.” Absent human intervention, nature quickly asserted its autonomy and confirmed what we already know: there is an inverse relationship between the degree of human involvement in the landscape and ecological health. In light of these events, this essay calls for a shift in the way that we maintain landscapes, grade their appearance, and define productivity. It promotes maintenance as a necessary tool of design and introduces a curriculum for an aesthetics of care.