Grass Above the Dead

Death is an unknowable-real, yet through ritual and representation it has come to feel controllable: a trope. Born from the myth of Gaia and the symbol of the Uroboros, ‘Grass Above the Dead’ inspects our denial of death: its manifestations within funerary procedure, gendered renditions and social behaviours, alongside its impact for the environment and for the woman burdened with an erotic and passively encoded death. Titled with an excerpt written by the muse of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – Elizabeth Siddall, the work explores a reclamation of agency within an act of destruction: its inherent tension and its cyclical comfort.