Placestory/Storyplace: A Gristly Category for a New Poetics of Space

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, we make an argument for addressing place-based narratives as ‘tissues of meaning’ rather than as discrete linearities. We look at how this allows us to skirt certain hierarchies of value in order to address narratives inclusively; tracing their continuity and morphology across literary novels, folklore records, information boards, church pamphlets and village names. Drawing examples from Crab & Bee projects including ‘Plymouth Labyrinth’ (2018–9) and ‘The Pattern’ (2020), we draw analogies between the role of sheets of fascia (gristle, jelly, fat, connective tissue, cartilage) in the human body – as a means of disrupting the assumed linearity (one step after another) of walking – and the idea of a narrative-fascia that stretches across different fields of literary production rather than a linear storyline. In conclusion, we argue for a radical inseparability of text and space and write of the need to read them both through the whole body.