Abstract
This paper focuses on Edinburgh-based poet Valerie Gillies and Orkney-based photographer Rebecca Marr’s six-year mixed-media collaboration, When the Grass Dances. My objective has been to trace the project’s goals and methods in all its various forms, as a website (2021), a kist (2021), a film (2022), an installation titled Buss O Gress at the Orkney Science Festival (2025), and a book, When the Grass Dances (Luath Press, 2025). I focus on the evolving artwork’s dialogue with feminist theory. Specifically, I trace the work’s contribution to feminist sensory studies, which calls into question the binary and hierarchical ordering of the senses into the masculine senses of sight and sound and the so-called “lesser” feminine senses of smell, taste, and touch, connected to the body. My methods include literature review and analysis of the artwork in all its media forms. The interpretation of these works involved attendance at the Buss O Gress installation in Orkney and interviews with the artists. I argue that the artwork involves the re-integration of the senses across media forms for the purpose of rewriting patriarchal and anthropocentric sensory norms. While the goals of the larger artwork change in emphasis over time, all the pieces share a commitment to human healing and to teaching a greater understanding of the importance of grasses to both humans and animals. These health and environmental objectives are accomplished through the revision of sensory narratives that enable a closing of the distances between humanity and the environment, even on technological platforms.
Presenters
Laura SeverinProfessor, English and Women's Studies, North Carolina State University, North Carolina, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
Poetry and the Visual Arts, Multimedia Collaborations, Feminist Theory
