Nymphaea: Lovers’ Letter to Water Lilies
Keywords:
feminist theory, queer ecology, heteronormativity, stop motion animation, companion species, tentacular thinking, the eroticAbstract
Our inspiration, theorizing, and living process of co-creating Nymphaea, a time-based, collaborative work created using stop-motion animation and live projection on the body is the focus of our inquiry presented in this essay. Our multimedia creation is inspired by Prudence Gibson and Monica Gagliano’s 2017 essay, The Feminist Plant: Changing Relations with the Water Lily. We explore queer ecologies posited by Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erickson (2010) with Donna Haraway’s (2016) “tentacular thinking.” Engaging with feminist/queer theory through embodied and experimental approaches to making, Nymphaea is our tentacular co-inquiry, a contemplation on water lilies as a queer companion species and as a more-than-human model of feminist collectivity, relationality, and care. Through Audre Lorde’s (1978/2007) Uses of the Erotic, we reflect on the ways our processes of co-creating Nymphaea and our companionship as artistic collaborators, educators, and life partners, are entangled.
