Sixteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper examines wavering grief as a way of reaching toward unknowing; a type of grief that feels the dark spots that we cannot otherwise readily access. Wavering grief is an ambiguous state of mourning what is both gone and not gone yet. I therefore explore here the materiality of wavering grief as is manifested in the particular experience of the snag, or standing deadwood. This experience embodies the physical proximity swayed by at least three interconnected phenomena: a) the ubiquitous force of gravity, b) the perpetually open wound, and c) the blind propagation of new worlds. The paper also examines how the situation of wavering grief creates the interminable condition that Jean Luc Nancy calls “the open wound” – i.e. a phantom limb which is still present. The final goal of the paper is to demonstrate the phenomenon of wavering grief as a somatically inscribed and perpetually ambivalent state, one that creates the necessary conditions for encountering new ontologies.