The Lab, in collaboration with a wide and growing network of partners and collaborators including Georgetown’s School of Health, Medical Humanities Initiative, Global Health Institute, School of Nursing, Lombardi Cancer Center, MedStar Health, Global Mental Health and Well-Being Initiative, and others, is proud to announce the launch of The Art of Care Initiative.
The Art of Care Initiative advances the idea that art and care are profoundly linked, and that this linkage can lead to more caring systems, better health outcomes, and a more just world. Our work is grounded in the conviction that art and care are not separate domains but mutually generative forces—art can be an active and powerful form of care, and care itself can be an art form.
This initiative is emerging at a moment when humans worldwide are renegotiating what it means to connect, heal, and belong. Our work preserves and cultivates the uniquely human capacities that no machine can replicate: shared presence, vulnerability, narrative imagination, ethical discernment, and relational depth. The initiative thus becomes a platform for reframing and reimagining what it means to be human.
Featured Stories
Caring Acts
Staged to rave reviews in 2024, The Art of Care highlighted the transformative power of caregiving and theater as a healing art. Today the theatrical production has grown into a university initiative exploring the role that narrative storytelling can play around care.
Sara Piccini, Georgetown Health Magazine, 2025.
Read the full article
Tender, Often Invisible Ways We Care for One Another...
“The Art of Care
tells the stories of caregivers, of nurses and doctors, of teachers, of policymakers, of the seven performers’ own
raw stories of receiving and giving care.” Read the full article.
My Journey with The Art of Care
Raghad Makhlouf is an Associate Director for the Lab’s Art of Care initiative. Her journey with The Lab began two years ago when she was introduced to the Art of Care production… and while she did not know it at the time, it was the beginning of an incredible journey of care, empathy, and self-discovery. Read the full article
Components of Initiative
Regular In Your Shoes™ workshops, The Lab’s signature method, employ techniques of deep listening and build communities of trust
An emerging Art of Care Ensemble that offers performances and workshops in community sites
New curricula at the intersection of arts, health, public policy, and environmental care
Convenings and knowledge-sharing networks for those advancing work at the intersection of arts, health, and global justice
Collaborative research on empathy, trust, and well-being in partnership with scholars in psychology, neuroscience, public health, and beyond
Public-facing collaborations and performances with an expansive global network of leading artistic partners
4 Modes of Care
1. Inner/Spiritual Care
The practices that help individuals reflect, regulate, heal, and cultivate meaning, purpose, joy, resilience, and imagination
2. Interpersonal Care
Practices and relationships that build trust, empathy, and mutual recognition across lines of difference—between patients and clinicians, students and faculty, caregivers and families, neighbors and strangers
3. Civic/Social Care
How communities, institutions, and societies care (or fail to care) for one another—particularly in times of polarization, inequality, displacement, and systemic injustice
4. Planetary/Environmental Care
The recognition that all care is nested within our relationship to the planet—its ecosystems, climate, and future viability
Select Critical Responses to The Art of Care Production
“An extraordinary experience of communal connection…. At a time when the body politic is greatly in need of consoling, The Art of Care is as much a moving performance as it is a public health service. It models in real time what it could mean for human community if the art of theater were itself an act of care.”
– John Stoltenberg, DC Theater Arts
“A rich and empathetic piece that feels right at home at Mosaic Theater Company…We are all interdependent, the show insists, and the sooner we attune ourselves to each other’s needs, the better our world will become. … The Art of Care feels truly special. May we all find the courage to so readily take others into our care!”
– Morgan Musselman, Broadway World
Collaboration
The mission of the Erica Pincus Arabesque Foundation is to celebrate and continue Erica’s life’s work to make the world a more just and joyful place through Civic Engagement, Social Justice, Innovation, and the Arts.
