The Quiet Work of Care, Responsibility and Making Work in 2025

Growing up in a Bollywood video rental shop in the 1980s meant that films were a central part of my life from a very young age. They played constantly (mainly because I was pirating some of them!!). They were woven into family conversations, domestic routines, and everyday life. Songs, dialogue, storylines, and images looped through my home, embedding themselves into my memory without effort or intention.

As an artist and a storyteller, I have always been drawn to dialogue and to the way words can imprint themselves on the mind. Dialogue has a way of entering your thoughts and staying with you, along with the emotions they create, carry, and convey.

One of those memorable pieces of dialogue for me is from the 1988 film Cocktail. During a conversation between Uncle Pat and his nephew, Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise), they discuss ambition and trying to make your mark in the world. Uncle Pat says, “Most things in life, good and bad, just kinda happen to you.”

I have carried that line with me for years. Perhaps because 1988 was a pivotal year in my own life—the year my father died—and I learned early that life often asks you to respond before you are ready. Or perhaps because, over time, it has proved itself to be true. Life rarely unfolds neatly. Things happen. We respond. We adapt.

For much of my artistic career, I have made work about domestic environments and everyday objects—places where ordinary life unfolds. My practice has explored living rooms, shops, bedrooms, and kitchens, often within South Asian households, as spaces shaped by love, laughter, loss, memory, and migration. These environments are rarely neutral. They carry emotional weight, family histories, secrets, and unspoken labour. Although my work is rooted in my own perspective, the themes I explore are universally relatable across cultures and faiths.

Domestic space is where care is negotiated, where relationships are formed and tested, and where much of life’s quiet work takes place.

In recent years, my practice gathered new momentum. A major commission connected to the Commonwealth Games in 2022 marked a significant turning point. It revealed the scale at which my work could operate and the breadth of audiences it could reach. It felt like a moment of expansion, optimism, and forward movement.

And then my life shifted inward.

I have had caring responsibilities since I was eleven years old, although i have rarely talked about being a young carer publicly it is very much the fabric of my being. Care has never been theoretical for me—it has always been part of my daily life. Over time, I managed to carve out a career in the arts alongside caring, but this time it was different. Over the past two years, and particularly throughout 2025, I became a full-time carer for a close family member who is seriously unwell. What began in 2024 intensified into a year of sustained, hands-on care that took me from the edges of the care system to finding myself fully inside it.

This period demanded everything—emotional, physical, and mental stamina. It was the ultimate test of endurance. I found myself navigating a complex and often fragmented care and medical system in the UK, coordinating appointments, treatments, and conversations with doctors, consultants, nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, pharmacists, and care agencies, while also carrying the emotional weight of caring for someone I love deeply. It was exhausting, relentless, and eye-opening in ways I could never have anticipated.

Stepping into this role meant stepping back from my practice. It simply was not possible to make work while caring full time. This is why I have been so quiet, and why my social media accounts have not been updated for a long time. That silence was not absence—it was necessity.

One doctor, who recognised my struggle as a family carer, held up his hand and wiggled his fingers while saying: the fingers on the hand are not all equal. He explained that not all families have the capacity or capability to care in the way you are doing right now. That simple image and conversation captured the reality of care for me—how responsibility can quietly concentrate around one person, and how unsustainable that can become.

Caring for someone I love deeply has reshaped my understanding of time. Caring has taught me the importance of noticing the smallest, everyday moments. When someone you love is unwell, these moments become everything—fragments of conversation, shared routines, fleeting expressions, humour, tenderness, frustration. These are the moments I hold onto. They form a quiet collection of stories that sustain me and i will hold onto in the future. This is also a time when conversations arise that I never imagined I would need to have—about vulnerability, memory, fear, responsibility, and love. It feels like a rite of passage that no one really prepares you for.

During this time, I found myself revisiting books such as The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It is a book about journeys, uncertainty, and learning to trust the path even when the destination is unclear. Reading it during moments of exhaustion and doubt reminded me that difficulty often carries its own kind of instruction—that meaning is not always immediate, but something that reveals itself gradually if you stay present and keep moving forward.

Despite everything, I know that as an artist, no experience is ever lost. I have never separated life from practice. Everything I live through eventually feeds into my creative work, and I am certain that this period will, in time, shape what I make next with meaning and purpose.

At the peak of difficulty this year, it made me question everything. I felt a need to remind myself that I was strong enough to bear the weight of being a full time carer. In July, despite having done very little physical activity in 2024 and 2025 and with no formal training, I took on the challenge of a night time hike up Scafell Pike in the Lake District with Andy Sahota and his organisation, Come Back Circle. It was extremely difficult. I remember walking uphill in the dark, the rocks sharp underfoot, feeling scared—and yet, at the same time, something felt magical. Below is a photo of me at the summit, around 5am,

Looking up, the sky was filled with stars. Looking ahead and behind, the only visible light came from the head torches worn by those walking with me. Some people were far ahead, their lights small and whispers in the distance. Others were behind. It struck me as a powerful metaphor. So often in life we think people are ahead of us, or behind us—but in truth, we are all navigating our own paths. We are all light for someone else.

As I climbed, I realised I could only see a few steps ahead at a time. And that was enough. Sometimes we are walking a path that is unknown, and all we can do is take the next few steps. Eventually, the path reveals itself.

That experience reminded me that I can be the alchemist in my own life—transforming pain into meaning.

Alongside this deeply personal period, I also found moments to reconnect with my creative community. I took part in a panel discussion with Creative Lancashire for International Women’s Day in March, and later in the year I had the honour of presenting Waseem Mahmood OBE with the Outstanding Contribution to Media award at the Asian Media Awards 2025. These moments mattered—reminders that even during intense periods of care, connection and creativity can still exist in small but meaningful ways.

I am clear about one thing: I will be returning to creativity in 2026. I am not yet sure what form that will take, but I trust that it will emerge as i continue to care. As part of that return, I will also be starting a Substack, where I plan to write monthly about creativity and the lived experiences that shape it—reflections that I hope will feed into the next chapter of my work.

I am deeply grateful for the support I have received—from industry peers, friends and acquaintances, and at times complete strangers. That kindness, offered in ways both big and small, has meant more to me than I can easily put into words.

If you feel moved to reach out after reading this piece, please feel free to use the contact form on my website. I would genuinely welcome hearing from you.

I wish you all a healthy and happy 2026.

Dawinder