Corporeal theory with/in practice: Christine Borland's winter garden

Focusing on the work Winter Garden, produced in 2001 by Scottish artist Christine Borland, the essay argues that contemporary women's art can move beyond the idea of the body as an object to interrogate sexual difference as a process of the ‘in-between’. Winter Garden can be seen to materialize concepts and enfold ‘theory’ with/in ‘practice’ in a vital, corporeal exchange with bodies in the world. This fact invites feminist art critics and historians to engage artwork otherwise. The essay suggests that this engagement is both mobile and located: a resonant critical practice takes theory as corporeal, part of a mutual knowledge project, itself capable of creative change and development in its encounter with different images, objects and ideas. Thinking through Winter Garden, some of the implications of corporeal theory are explored as forms of inventive feminist thought.